WHY HILL LEFT THE HAWKS

THERE is not a day that goes by that Bradley Hill regrets his decision to leave the Hawthorn Football Club.

This is not to downplay the joy he took out of his five years with the Hawks, but having won three consecutive flags in the brown and gold Hill realised early in the 2016 season that he needed to go home to Western Australia.

Specifically, to the Fremantle Football Club.

Why a player that had experienced so much success and was likely to achieve so much more would choose to go becomes far easier to understand when you appreciate just what family means to the Hills.

Bradley is one of seven children on his mother’s side of the family — there are five boys and two girls — while his father has another two boys who he does not see.

There are siblings, cousins, uncles, aunties, nephews and nieces scattered everywhere, but their connection is unbreakable.

When Bradley’s older brother, Stephen, was drafted to Fremantle in 2008, it was a proud moment for the family.

Five years later the pair would become the first brothers to compete for opposing sides in a VFL/AFL grand final in more than 100 years.

But being on the opposite side of the country was too much for Hill to handle.

All the success in the world did not make him feel any closer to his home and to his family.

The 24-year-old knows there are countless sets of brothers across the competition playing for opposing sides, but he says for indigenous players, the desire to be part of something that can be shared together is what makes the pull of home so enticing.

“Indigenous families, they are really family-orientated … everything is about family,” Hill said.

“We have a really strong connection with each other. Some of the other boys might just want to enjoy their footy where they are, but I definitely feel in the indigenous community we are very family-orientated, especially because we have such big families as well.

“Obviously my brother was here and growing up over here I had all of my family and friends over here, so it was a decision I made early in 2016 that I wanted to come back.

“Halfway through the season I made that choice and it was obviously going to be Freo and not West Coast, because it was a dream of mine to play alongside my brother since he got drafted so that made it pretty easy.

“Family is the most important thing to me, I come from a big family and my mum has seven kids, so there is a lot of us and we have got lots of cousins and whatnot with nephews and nieces, so seeing them grow up is a lot easier being here.”

Hill understands that family and connection are ideals that resonate with most people, but there is an undeniable strength in those values within indigenous culture.

At Hawthorn he collaborated with indigenous teammates and Yorta Yorta/ Wiradjuri painter Jirra LullaHarvey on the design of the club’s indigenous guernsey for the Sir Doug Nicholls round, and through his community work and role with the Starlight Foundation has helped put a smile on the faces of sick children from the Tiwi Islands and Western Australia.

It is this aspect of the work that indigenous players do that can be so significant as it often helps show youth within their community that there are role models out there they can aspire to be like.

It is something that Hill is aiming to do more of in the years ahead but he says it has been pleasing to see how education around indigenous issues has increased so dramatically in recent years.

“We’re definitely on the right track and have come a long way from where we started,” he said. “Being a part of the footy club, you see how much all of the people in the footy department want to learn about it and buy into it.

“When it is Sir Doug Nicholls round, everyone wants to be a part of it and even non-indigenous players get their boots painted with indigenous art, which is just awesome to see.

“Even in NAIDOC Week at our club this year we had Daniel Motlop come in and he got us some traditional (indigenous) food in and everyone loved it, so, we have come a long way and we are heading in the right direction.”

On the field Hill has endured a disappointing year, injuring his knee early in the season and then losing his role within the Fremantle leadership group for off-field misdemeanours.

It has been a disappointing way to follow up a sen- sational first year with the Dockers, where he played every game and won the club best-and-fairest award.

The team has won eight games in 2018 — the same number as last season. But Hill says while it is clearly a different experience playing for a team that is not competing for a premiership, Fremantle’s time is not far away.

“When I was at Hawthorn I was pretty much always the youngest player in the team and I came over here with a little bit of experience and was able to have a pretty consistent season last year,” he said.

“Getting the best-andfairest was an awesome achievement and is another thing I can say I have done in my footy career and something I will look back at the end of my career too.

“Hawthorn was flying and had just played in a prelim the year before I got there and then played in four grand finals in my first four years, so it is easy when you’re winning but now I’m in a completely different transition with these players and seeing the young boys coming through is something I enjoy.

“I’ve never missed so much footy since I was younger so it was a bit different this year not playing. But the last six or seven weeks it has been so much better being out there playing with the boys and not sitting on the sidelines watching, so it has been good to be back out there.

“Hopefully it doesn’t take us too long to work our way up the ladder and I’m sure we will get back up there soon.”

Irrespective of results, Hill has no regrets. He is with his family, and that is all that matters.