O’brien’s way out of ‘mess’
THE “messy” coaching situituation at Hawthorn played a part in tall defender Tim O’brien finding a home at the Western Bulldogs.
O’brien came out of contract and revealed the he “different messages” at the Hawks in the botched handover between Alistair Clarkson and Sam Mitchell sent him looking elsewhere.
“All the coaching stuff was sort of just coming to fruition, so it was all a little bit messy, we didn’t really speak about contracts at all in the exit meeting,” he said.
“It was all pretty tough, everyone sort of handled it differently and it affected some more than others. Myself without a contract, it was a little bit of question marks about what does that mean to me.”
As an unrestricted agent, O’brien had the opportunity to decide his future and quickly settled on the Bulldogs, signing a two-year deal on Thursday morning.
“It is obviously what you play footy for to play in finals and I am actually yet to play in a final,” he said.
The Bulldogs further solidified their big man department by re-signing young ruckman Jordon Sweet.
Sweet had a breakout season. He has signed until the end of 2023.