Aaron Hamill Contract

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Aaron Hamill Contract
2004 Press Articles

Hamill a Saint to 2008
St Kilda's 2003 captain Aaron Hamill has signed a contract extension that will tie him to the Saints until the end of 2008.
St Kilda chief executive Brian Waldron said the club was thrilled to secure Hamill's services.
"Since joining the Club Aaron has been an integral part of re-building the organisation on and off the field, Waldron told saints.com.au.
"Importantly, in all our discussions with Aaron and his manager he has had the long term interests of the Club and his team mates at heart.
The details of the agreement, which will remain confidential, are indicative of his selfless approach to his football and to the organisation".
Hamill said it was his aim to see out his career at Moorabbin.
"I consider it a personal privilege to finish my career with the Club," he said.
"I look forward with excitement and anticipation to playing with the outstanding team we have put together and I consider it an honour to represent the club, which has shown great faith in me in securing our long term future together."
Link no longer active The Article - Sportal - afl.com.au - 08Apr04
Link no longer active The Article - Sportal - saints.com.au - 08Apr04
Link no longer active Hamill deal sets the tone for Saints - Sportal - saints.com.au - 08Apr04

Hamill signs for five
09 April 2004 - Herald Sun
Damian Barrett
ST KILDA will begin contract negotiations with its star youngsters, following Aaron Hamill's decision to commit to the club until the end of 2008.
Reason to smile: Aaron Hamill will stay with the Saints until at least the end of 2008.
The Saints wanted to seal a deal with Hamill before opening talks with other players.
Hamill's deal, incorporates this year, making it a five-year contract. It is said to be worth more than $2.6 million.
Luke Ball and Brendon Goddard are believed to be out of contract at the end of the year, while captain Lenny Hayes, Justin Koschitzke, Nick Dal Santo, Xavier Clarke, Leigh Montagna, Matt Maguire and Allan Murray have deals until the end of the 2005 season.
An already lucrative deal with full-forward Fraser Gehrig must be renegotiated later this year.
Hamill and his manager Dave Allison met St Kilda coach Grant Thomas and chief executive Brian Waldron on Wednesday to finalise the contract.
"We thrashed around for an hour and a hal and, at the end of the day, Aaron decided not to chase what he could have got elsewhere and that is the character of the bloke," Allison said.
"He is very happy and the fact it is for five years means it takes in his playing days."
Hamill turns 27 in August and would have received offers from many clubs, including Carlton, which he left controversially at the end of 2000, had his old deal been allowed to expire.
"Because of who he is and because of the fact they appreciate him so much, they probably had to stitch him up before they could begin to stitch up the younger players," Allison said.
St Kilda's decision to commit long term to Hamill goes against recent policy adopted by clubs.
The AFL recently cautioned clubs against entering deals with players longer than two years, with Carlton's deal with Anthony Koutoufides and Essendon's arrangement with Mark Mercuri examples of long-term agreements that have caused headaches.
Waldron said Hamill's signature was crucial to the club's future.
"Since joining the club, Aaron has been an integral part of rebuilding the organisation on and off the field," he said.
"Importantly, in all our discussions with Aaron and his manager, he has had the long-term interests of the club and his teammates at heart."
Hamill said the deal offered him security.
"Since joining the St Kilda Football Club in 2000 and having experienced the process that we have gone through, I consider it a personal privilege to finish my career with the club," he said.
"I look forward with excitement and anticipation to playing with the outstanding team we have put together and I consider it an honour to represent the club, who has shown great faith in me in securing our long-term future together."
Link no longer active

Hamill Contract
The Age Real Footy
By Jake Niall
April 29, 2004
The greatest potential impediment to a St Kilda dynasty is not the club's so-called culture, or its history of internal combustion, but whether the club can retain its fleet of talented players.
The Saints might be developing a Brisbane-like playing list, but they do not have Brisbane's enlarged salary cap.
That's why the recent signing of Aaron Hamill on a five-year contract was received with such astonishment in football circles. Hamill turns 27 in August and will be well past the dreaded 30 when his contract winds up, at the end of 2007.
Hamill's bash-and-crash style is not necessarily conducive to a long career. Dermott Brereton, who played with similar maniacal aggression, was more or less a spent force by his late 20s.
Essendon, bitten by the dud Mark Mercuri deal, refused a Matthew Lloyd proposal for a five-year contract, signing the superstar spearhead for only three years. Lloyd is 26.
The Saints would be aware of these realities. But because of the initial contract they snared Hamill with, they were forced to accede to his management's demands.
Under the terms of that first, heavily backloaded deal, Hamill was due to receive about $700,000 - about a third of his four-year remuneration - this year.
The Saints could ill afford to pay that kind of money and persuaded Hamill to forgo a large chunk this year. The troubling trade-off, however, was that Hamill would still be paid $450,000-$500,000 in 2006 and 2007 (including marketing money). Who knows how many dents his panel-beaten body will have taken by then?
That's not his problem, although it might be St Kilda's when it tries to keep Riewoldt, Hayes, Ball, Goddard, Dal Santo et al.
One long and excessive contract can cause serious damage to a club's premiership chances. In the case of Carlton, it can seriously compromise, or postpone, one's recovery.
The most damaging long-term contracts were signed in 2000 or 2001, when the new TV rights deal was on the horizon and everyone thought the salary cap would continue its exponential growth; it did not. Four of those continue to haunt clubs.
1. Mark Mercuri. Mercuri cost Essendon far more than the $2 million-plus over five years the club committed to pay him following the club's 2000 premiership. The enforced shedding of players, including Blake Caracella, Damian Hardwick and Chris Heffernan, might have been averted if not for the Mercuri deal. More significantly, the deal has prevented Essendon from pursuing quality players from other clubs. As a player, the injury-battered Mercuri has been a pale fascimile of the sublime mover he was in the mid and late '90s. Although he has given the club some respite by agreeing to pay cuts, his contract, which was backloaded until he achieved veteran status (this year), has made him untradeable.
2. Nick Holland. Hawthorn's Holland disaster is remarkably similar to the Mercuri mess. Holland, whose deal was also back-ended because of the veteran rule, was due to be paid a guaranteed sum excess of $600,000 this year before he agreed to a cut for the 2004 season. He is due even more next year.
The four-year deal Holland signed in 2001 has almost certainly contributed to the loss of Jade Rawlings to the Bulldogs. Burnt by the Holland contract and mindful of Jade's wonky knee, the club took a tough line in negotiations with Rawlings, refusing to give him the three years he desired.
3. Darren Gaspar. Here's an instance when the player had the club over a barrel and was able to make outrageous demands. Fremantle was hot for Gaspar at the end of 2001 and made an exorbitant offer. The Dockers, as the bottom-placed team, could pick him - in theory at least - in the pre-season draft; Richmond was worried it could lose him for zilch. Given that Gaspar has since had a knee reconstruction, is barely worth a game right now and is to be paid an estimated $600,000 a season until the end of 2006 (when he will be 30), the Tigers probably wish they had let him walk.
4. Anthony Koutouides. Kouta was the competition's most unstoppable player when he signed his famous five-year, $5 million deal and became its top earner. Like Gaspar, it was within a short time frame that his knee collapsed.
Kouta took a pay cut in excess of 20 per cent to enable the Blues to get under the salary cap at the end of 2002; last year, he took another snip, but the Ian Collins regime was forced to extend Koutoufides' contract until the end of 2006, when he willl be 33 and Kouta will remain easily the club's highest earner, with a stratospheric contract that includes $400,000 of marketing money.
Link no longer active www.realfooty.theage.com....52628.html

Hamill seeks long-term deal
St Kilda has opened contract negotiations with Aaron Hamill as it begins the increasingly difficult task of keeping its star players within the salary cap. The Saints want to deal with Hamill's contract, which expires at the end of the season, before thrashing out arrangements with other stars.
Link no longer active - Damian Barrett - HeraldSun - 04Mar04

Hamill deal sets the tone for Saints
St Kilda coach Grant Thomas believes the club's re-signing of Aaron Hamill, which extends his contract for a further four years, will help keep its talented playing list intact. Thomas said the club intended to re-sign up to five players in the next four weeks, and believes Hamill's long term commitment will inspire his teammates to remain at Moorabbin, even if they receive more lucrative offers from elsewhere. "This year there's probably another three or four or five that we need to get on top of, but I'm sure that they'll go without too many hitches, because to have someone like Aaron give his intentions is a great fillip for the rest of the playing group." "He's enormously respected amongst them and there's a bit of a - if it's good enough for Aaron, it will be good enough for us as well," Thomas said on Friday.
Link no longer active - Samantha Lane/Sportal - saints.com.au - 09Apr04

Hamill Re-signs until 2008
Roger: . . . We want to be known as a hard tough physical team, not just a highly skilled one . . . Hamill provides that leadership which we can all see is spreading like wildfire throughout the team. My dream of us being a dirty filthy pack of animals (ala bears) is just around the corner . . . Not getting ahead of myself - just taking it one flag at a time.
Link no longer active Fan Forum Thread - Roger - Saintsational.com

Hamill agrees to remain a Saint until career's end
"I consider it a personal privilege to finish my career with the club," Hamill said."I look forward with excitement and anticipation to playing with the outstanding team we have put together and I consider it an honour to represent the club, which has shown great faith in me in securing our long-term future together." This was in stark contrast to Hamill's contract negotiations with the Blues at the end of 2000. The talks stalled and then Carlton president John Elliott publicly criticised Hamill, who left for St Kilda soon after.
Link no longer active - AAP - TheAge - 09Apr04

Hamill agrees to remain a Saint until career's end Aaron Hamill said yesterday that he looked forward to continuing to play with the outstanding team StKilda has put together.
The club announced the 26-year-old had signed a new contract, but would give no other details of the deal.
Hamill joined the Saints for the 2001 season after an acrimonious split with Carlton, where he made his league debut in 1996.
The key forward was the first Saints skipper last year under their unique captain rotation policy, with the leadership switching this year to Lenny Hayes. Hamill played 92 games at Carlton and has played another 62 at St Kilda.
He made it clear yesterday that the rest of his career would be as a Saint.
Link no longer active The Article AAP/TheAgeRealFooty/09Apr04

Click for pic 2

Hamill's AFL return still a Saintly hope
The bad news at St Kilda is that Aaron Hamill probably has about as much chance of returning to senior football this year as the club has of making the finals. The good news is that coach Ross Lyon hasn't given up on either possibility. Hamill hasn't played a senior game this season, but held out the promise that he might do so soon when he turned out for VFL affiliate the Casey Scorpions two weeks ago. But a full-scale comeback became as doubtful as ever last week when the knee flared and caused him to miss another run with Casey. Despite the setback, Lyon says he is far from ready to scrap Hamill's 2007 season. Hamill, 29, has been troubled by a knee injury since early last year and missed more than half of 2006 with that and other problems. The temptation to abandon 2007 in a bid to get everything right for next year must have its attractions given the Saints currently sit two games out of the top eight in 12th place.
The Article AAP/RealFooty/11Jul07
Injury 'an ordeal' for Saints' Hamill ABCSport/11Jul07
Hamill's AFL return still a Saintly hope Mike Hedge/AAP/saints.com.au/11Jul07

Saints' retirement option for Hamill - Greg Denham - July 13, 2007
St Kilda star Aaron Hamill's latest injury setback is set to turn up the heat on the club's salary-cap pressures as it seeks to re-sign several of its big names. After failing yet another comeback from a knee injury this month, Hamill is unlikely to play again. However, he is on a guaranteed contract for 2008, worth as much as $600,000. St Kilda is not publicly talking about pushing him into retirement yet, but it may become a reality to ease salary-cap pressure next season. The club has yet to come to terms with Nick Riewoldt, Nick Dal Santo and Xavier Clarke, who are all out of contract at the end of this season. Hamill's contract for 2008 could place severe pressure on the Saints' ability to retain one or two of their most experienced players. St Kilda re-signed Hamill to a lucrative five-year deal, starting in 2004, which was heavily back-ended in the final year. Hamill's manager David Allison yesterday said he had not been in contact with the Saints following his client's latest setback, but conceded it was likely Hamill, who turns 30 next month, could be asked to retire and accept a payout for less money. "His deal is unconditional, but I'm happy to listen to what they (St Kilda) have got to say," Allison said. If Hamill's career is cut short, he would have a choice of cutting his losses at a reduced rate, or staying on at his contracted remuneration but would have to be listed and continue to rehabilitate for another 12 months. The Saints are unlikely to announce Hamill's retirement before the November national draft because next year's payout would have to be included in this year's salary cap. The Artilce Greg Denham/TheAustralian/13Jul07

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