\u2018What\u2019s the point of playing them?\u2019 Heat on flag Tigers; AFL\u2019s hardest side to work out<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cWe\u2019re not where we want to be at the moment. But I think people look at our list and the make-up of our list, people will go: \u2018This is going to be a pretty good club for a long period of time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked if he\u2019d sensed a change in King\u2019s attitude, Hardwick said: \u201cNo, absolutely not.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe one thing about \u2018Kingy\u2019, you wouldn\u2019t know that this is a part of his everyday life. He\u2019s been outstanding \u2026 Even if he\u2019s made his decision, he will still be the same guy that shows up every day, smile on his face, works his backside off for this footy club.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been incredible for the eight or nine years that he\u2019s been here and he\u2019ll be incredible \u2026 until his time finishes with us. He\u2019s been a pleasure to coach, he\u2019s an outstanding human and you know we\u2019d love to have him.\u201d<\/p>\n
John Longmire addresses coaching future | 02:05<\/p>\n
At Hawthorn, coach Sam Mitchell stopped short of speculating how the Hawks would manage the competition\u2019s fiercest forward line next season.<\/p>\n
Jack Gunston and Mitch Lewis re-signed in the same 24 hours, just days after The Age reported King had selected Hawthorn as his preferred free agency destination.<\/p>\n
Mitchell often jokes with the media about team selection, pointing to the 6.20pm mandatory release, and he reverted to that again on Thursday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs there speculation about that? I hadn\u2019t heard that one,\u201d Mitchell joked, when asked about King.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think 6.20 in six months\u2019 time, that\u2019s when you\u2019ll find out about what we\u2019ll do with the forward line.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever it looks like, there\u2019s so much water to go under the bridge between now and whatever that looks like next season.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst and foremost we\u2019ll be very heavily focused on the players that are within these walls right now, making sure we can get the best out of them in the finals campaign in front of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
The re-signings and potential addition leaves exciting young forward Calsher Dear down the pecking order.<\/p>\n
But Mitchell is urging patience with the 20-year-old, praising his hard work in the reserves.<\/p>\n
Crows lose Keane for Pies clash | 01:09<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean his game on the weekend was really good,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working on a few things and there\u2019s always a lag effect to learning and when you try some things with a player like Calsher.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s 20 years old (as) a key forward, I\u2019m really pleased with his progress and he jumped out of the blocks as an 18-year-old.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen he\u2019s had some injury and hasn\u2019t done a full pre-season, so with someone like him he\u2019s every chance coming in as soon as this week.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut his form on the weekend was a big step in the right direction for what we\u2019re after from him, so I\u2019m pleased with how he\u2019s developing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 with NCA NewsWire<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick insists he wants Ben King to stay, but is adamant his club has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818098,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-818097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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