As the final siren sounded in the empty MCG to bring the Hawks 2021 season to a close, Hawthorn supporters watched with a tinge of sadness as Shaun Burgoyne walked off the Hallowed turf for the last time at the Hawks.
While this moment was bittersweet to watch, supporters had an inkling that while it was the end of an era for Silk, they had seen something that day that would make them joyous for years to come.
Young Tyler Brockman, wearing the #42 guernsey and in only his 11th league game, had kicked 3 goals and showed off some of his freakish skills against a Richmond backline who 12 months earlier had won the flag.
2022 was going to see Brockman working alongside Breust and Moore as our mosquito fleet of pressuring small forwards who were going to terrorise opposition teams.
Fast forward to today and we know that the 2022 season did not go to plan for those dreams.
While Brockman finished the 2021 season off on a high note, a combination of issues caused him to have a delayed start to the season, before injury in his one and only VFL game put curtains to his season.
Out of contract at the end of 2022,Hawthorn offered him a one year deal, keeping him around Bunjil Bagora for the 2023 season and giving him the opportunity to continue to showcase his immense talent at the club.
This week, it was announced that Tyler Brockman, the 46th selection in the 2020 AFL National Draft, was back in the senior team for the first time since the final game of the 2021 season.
In the 11 games played in his short AFL career to date, he has scored 10 goals, averaged over 1 mark inside 50 per game and just shy of 9 touches a game.
He has a fantastic leaping mark, similar to Puopolo back in our glory days and provides real x factor, which besides Chad Wingard, we have been crying out for in our forward half.
His quickness means that he is able to hunt down opposition players with the ball, while his want for the defensive side of the game has been a stand out in VFL coach Zane Littlejohn’s reports after the past few VFl hit outs.
With the forward line still a work in progress for the 2023 season due to the loss of key forward Mitch Lewis and the inability for the team to keep the ball locked into the forward line, Brockman will be a welcome addition to the side for this weekend’s game against the Kangaroos.
Fresh off his 12 touches, 3 goal haul on the weekend for Box Hill against premiership heavyweights in Sydney in the VFL, Brocky will be full of confidence and ready to make his mark and remind Hawthorn fans of that prodigious talent he showed in his debut season, which will go a long way to shaping how our forward line operates not only this weekend, but well into the future.
