Hawks secure rising star in spite of serious knee injury earlier this season.
Despite not being sighted this season, the Hawthorn Hawks have secured an important player for their future success with Matt Suckling signing with the club for another two seasons.
Suckling has not played for the Hawks since their loss to the Sydney Swans in last year’s AFL grand final, after he ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament, in a pre-season game in March.
However, the club has shown faith in the in 25-year-old being able to bounce back to his previous form but locking up up until the end of the 2015 season.
Hawthorn acting manager of football Chris Fagan said the news was great for the club and Suckling.
We were terribly disappointed when he hurt his knee at the start of this year,” Fagan said.
“He’s become an important player at our club so it’s good for him in a year where he’s been injured that the club has shown faith in him to continue on.
“We are very hopeful he’ll come back better than ever from his injury. These knee injuries also make you grow up as a person as well I think.
“He’ll be pretty hungry to do well when he comes back and we’re really happy to have him at the club for another two years.”
Hawthorn will be without captain Luke Hodge for at most two weeks after the club’s captain needed minor surgery on a broken thumb earlier in the week.
Fagan believes the lighter weeks of workload for Hodge will pay dividends for the side as they make their run towards the finals.
“He’s played 17 games in row and he throws his body around, so it’s probably an opportune time to have a bit of a rest,” Fagan said.
“It’s not good fortune that he’s fractured a little bone in his thumb, but it probably is in the sense that it gives his body a chance to freshen up which is good for every body at this time of the year.”
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