Hille has been an excellent contributor for Essendon this season. He has played all 21 games, kicked 19 goals, collected 222 possessions and 315 hitouts – a figure that places him seventh among the ruckmen in the AFL. Last weekend he was an important contributor in the win over Fremantle. His two long goals late in the game capped off another creditable performance. Essendon assistant coach Mark Harvey says Hille is reminding him more and more of the man charged with monitoring his development – ruck coach and former Essendon champion Simon Madden.
“I can see a lot of qualities now in David Hille that are very similar to Simon Madden – play in the ruck and then go forward and kick goals – and that is what he is doing and it is a great attribute to have. Whether a ruckman should go forward or come off the ground and rest depends on the impact he has but we are finding that as his football evolves we are sending him forward rather than to the bench,” Harvey said.
“I think we are seeing the results of the three years we have nurtured and developed David Hille. We recruited John Barnes and Paul Salmon and we have also had Steven Alessio – in hindsight that is the best thing we could have done for David’s career. It meant we didn’t have to throw him to the wolves too early.
“In the past three years he hasn’t had to shoulder a huge workload in the ruck. He is now starting to do that and has benefited enormously from the patience we have shown with him. David has now developed to the stage where sides are going to have to look at nullifying the influence he has on the game. When David Hille plays well we win.”
“I think his running patterns around the ground are much more dangerous, he is reading the game very well and not having those lapses in concentration. And David takes a lot of contested marks – not many guys take a lot of contested marks. Defensively sides are so switched on they just don’t let it happen.”
Harvey said he has also been encouraged by Hille’s communication on match day, particularly at stoppages. “One of the most under-estimated thing in football is the ruckman’s ability to communicate – they have to be the best communicators. I just see David telling players prior to stoppages what is going on and that is a sign that he is maturing as a footballer,” he said.
Hille will lock horns with Collingwood’s Josh Fraser this Friday night – it will be a key clash in one of the biggest games of the season. Fraser was taken number one in the 1999 draft, Hille was taken at 40 the same year. The pair played against each other at the National under 18 championships that year so they are by no means strangers.
Harvey says the pair have been handled differently in the past few years. “I think Fraser has spent more time up forward in his first couple of years of football than David has – we have had some good key position forwards in Matthew Lloyd and Scott Lucas so we didn’t push him forward much early in his career. Fraser on the other hand was probably sheltered a fair bit from the ruck duties. In terms of actually rucking, David is more experienced than Fraser at senior level,” Harvey said.
“Fraser has a real ability to work hard in close and then burst out of stoppages. We need to look at how we nullify that. Fraser is not used like Steven McKee – he doesn’t sit back and fill a hole. Fraser is more attacking so you have to be cagey when it comes to nullifying that. David will need to be smart about his own timing – when we have won the ball and when he runs forward.
“It is a key battle and so is that of the back up ruckman which could be possibly Aaron Henneman and Sav Rocca – I think that is just as significant in many ways. It is interesting in that neither of them a really ruckmen – they are key position players with good leaps but they will have to spend some time in there. Of course that depends on whether we play Steven Alessio and they play Steven McKee.”
