Hawthorn believes it is ready to unleash potentially one of the most exciting attacks to ever hit the AFL next season after adding talented but troubled Brisbane goalsneak Rhan Hooper to an attack already bulging with exciting indigenous talent during Thursday night's AFL draft.
The 2008 premiers selected 21-year-old Hooper at pick 58 with Hawks' fans no doubt already salivating at the prospect of seeing the exciting Hooper line up alongside fellow indigenous stars Lance Franklin, Cyril Rioli and boom recruit Shaun Burgoyne in the Hawks' attack in 2010.
Certainly Hawthorn list manager Chris Pelchen was already looking forward to that prospect immediately after taking a chance on the at times wayward Hooper in Thursday night's draft.
"We are talking about a group that is very talented and very highly skilled," he told Sportal when asked about the prospect of Hooper, Franklin, Rioli and Burgoyne all lining up alongside each other next year.
"At the end of the day we think Rhan has got some outstanding football ability and with Mark Williams transferring to Essendon during the trade period we felt that there was an opportunity for Rhan to come in and have an immediate impact on our playing group in terms of his crumbing ability in the forward 50."
"And he is a player who has shown he can play at the level so we are very happy to get him."
Hooper played 48 games in four seasons with the Lions and kicked 49 goals and while he only played nine games this season, the Lions thought highly enough of him to select him in both its finals matches.
But Hooper's problem at the Lions was his attitude after he was initially suspended in December, 2008 for continually missing training before he was later fined $40,000 in early 2009 for again missing training with his off-field behaviour ultimately seeing the Lions dump him at the end of the season.
However the Hawks believe Hooper will relish the change of scenery as he moves away from his native Queensland to Victoria and are confident the club's strong on-field leadership team of Sam Mitchell and Luke Hodge will help keep Hooper motivated.
"We certainly had lengthy discussions with Rhan over the last month and he has conceded things didn't end favourably for him at Brisbane," Pelchen said.
"We certainly don't want to enter into discussion on what was right and wrong with him at Brisbane, we are just happy to get him to Hawthorn and look forward to him having a strong influence in terms of our direction moving forward."