They aren't rumours though! If there were photos of him on FB drinking, smoking, etc., it is pretty bloody likely that he actually did those things, wouldn't you say? I'm not saying this kid is the devil, but he did these things, and they were bad enough for him to not get drafted. Like i said, whether he's changed or not, he's keeping the bad boy tag for at least a couple of years.
Look, i understand he's a Hawthorn bloke now, and that people want to stick up for him, but that doesn't mean we should ignore his history. The guy screwed up, and even when he was given a second chance by Essendon, he screwed that up too.
Pre-draft? Did Martin actually do anything other than be his father's son? And what did Buddy do before he was drafted? Yet both of them had the bad boy tag coming into the draft. The fact that both of them were still taken in the top 5, while Garlett was overlooked completely tells you that he was worse than they were.
He had pictures of him drinking, smoking, statuses indicating he was about to 'get busy', etc. He was kicked out of the AIS squad, dropped from Colts footy, dropped from his WAFL team. After missing out in the draft, he trained at Essendon to get a rookie position. A couple of days before the rookie draft, he went on a late night bender, and was kicked out of Essendon.
While these things may not sound that bad, it was really his whole lifestyle. The kind of people he hung around with, the lack of application at training, etc. He has apparently ditched most of his friends, stopped drinking and smoking, and actually knuckled down at training in 2013, which are all steps in the right direction.
I guess we will never know the full extent of why Garlett was overlooked, and i won't go into the rumours, but it's not like he did nothing. Recruiters would have talked to his coaches, his teammates, etc., and even after seeing him dominate, decided it wasn't worth it.
