Congratulations to Kieran Hesse who will be playing their 50th Game this weekend!
Congratulations to Kieran Hesse on playing his 50th game for the club. It has been a lengthy journey getting here, his football having had to contend with multiple mid-season trips to Europe, doomed interstate journeys to watch the saints and the joys of shift work, but in the final round of his 5th season at the club he has finally reached the milestone.
Kieran joined the Eagles in 2022, with his debut coming in round 2 of that year in the infamous ANZAC game against Fitzroy. Despite a patriotic rev up from our then coach, the thirds went down by 208 points that day. It is testament to Kieran’s dedication that he showed up the next week, because there were a fair few soldiers who went AWOL after the first couple of rounds of that season, never to be seen again.
He stuck it out through the dark days and in the following years his game blossomed. Being a former disciple of John Meagher, he has always been able to run all day, but as he grew in confidence, he started to put his rapid turn of pace and sidestep to good use, regularly torching opponents.
One year he even brought his brother down to the club, and for a while there they formed a dynamic duo to rival all the great brother combinations seen in the thirds, before Jordan was tragically forced to medically retire with a sore rib. Thankfully the issue doesn’t run in the family.
A career highlight came in round 9 of this year when he earned a call up for his first game in the reserves. Unfortunately, he did his calf 6 minutes into the game, but he is nothing if not resilient, and he has since managed to rehab the calf and get through two full two’s games unscathed.
Off the field he is just as good value, and he can always be counted on to come forward with blurry screenshots of WhatsApp messages detailing dubious rumours about everything from Clayton Oliver to Chiko Rolls.
Kieran, it has been a pleasure sharing the field with you over the years and an even greater one getting to know you off it. I look forward to many more to come and hopefully we can finally celebrate a finals win soon.
Tom Brugliera
