There's a dark cloud hanging over the new Dog...

IN 1997 I worked on the program for a preseason game between Fremantle and St Kilda in Bunbury.
The Saints faxed through a few metres of player profiles, all filled in personally. I kept a few and still have Barry Andrew Hall’s mainly because I loved his answer to the question “Did your family play sport? Who with?”
Hall wrote: “My Dad done Boxing with Leo Berry.”
Looking back at that profile during a home office clean up this week I noticed something far more revealing.
Q. Who did you barrack for as a youngster?
A. Footscray.
So Hall’s move to the Western Bulldogs from Sydney is somewhat of a homecoming.
The Dogs have picked up Hall for about as much as St Kilda gave up for Brett Peake so, on the surface, it would appear to be a pretty good deal. Every “expert” in the nation could see the Bulldogs needed a big forward and that’s what Hall is.
Everyone also knows the baggage – he’s prone to some rather extreme on-field behaviour and admits he’s unsure he can control himself.
There’s something else, it could be the key to Hall’s fall from grace. Surely the Bulldogs factored it in. Hall has been recruited because the Dogs see themselves as possible premiers. Hall is a premiership player but if he’d made even the slightest contribution in the 2006 grand final then he, and Sydney, would have two.
Barry Hall was an absolute flop in the last grand final he played. Will he be able to gain a measure of redemption at his new club or is there are another nightmare looming?

• Barry Hall poses during a press conference announcing he had joined the Bulldogs. Photo by Sean Garnsworthy. The Slattery Media Group

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