Jesse Haberfield

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  • THE AFL's Gold Coast franchise has signed its first players, recruiting three teenage Queenslanders.
Charlie Dixon from Cairns and Gold Coast pair Jesse Haberfield and Jack Stanlake, all aged 17, are the first players to formally commit for the team which will make its debut in the TAC Cup Under-18 competition next year.
"This is a very important milestone and in years to come we will be able to look back and say these guys were the foundations of the building of the Gold Coast Football Club," said GC17 chairman John Witheriff.
"I'd like to thank Jesse, Charlie and Jack for agreeing to join us on the journey to become the most exciting sporting club in Australia."
The Gold Coast team is scheduled to play in the TAC Cup next year, then move into the VFL in 2010 and join the AFL in 2011.
The AFL have allowed the GC17 franchise to pre-sign up to 20 Queensland players of draft eligible age in 2009-10.
"We still have a long way to go, however, community support is growing and we believe the Gold Coast is telling us they want this team," Witheriff said.
"Now we have players who are telling us they want to play for us so we are confident we are on the right track."
The contracts will become void if the GC17 franchise does not meet the criteria set down by the AFL Commission and does not win the 17th licence in early October.
The players would then be eligible for the national draft in November.
 

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Actually ran past him the other night on the way into the game and he was on the way out, he was in a hurray for some reason. Doesnt stop running., Should run into some real form soon I think.
 
You stole my pick in the buddy draft (taken #2).
No worries mate :)

You've already posted a few links to what I'd found but I'll just add a couple more.

http://www.standard.net.au/blogs/fl...f-the-season-is-nigh/1239243.aspx?storypage=2

Jesse Haberfield, who captained Queensland at the national under 18 titles, is the son of former Irrewillipe premiership player Brendan Haberfield. Irrewillipe later merged with Pirron Yallock to form the Western Eagles.

Jesse, 17, was born in Geelong and moved with his family to the Gold Coast in 1998.

The year 12 Benowa High School student was among the first draft of young players recruited by the Coasters, which plan to field a TAC Cup side next season as the first building block towards an AFL team in 2011.

Jesse described his involvement with the new club as exciting and said he was looking forward to the 2009 season.

He said his father was a strong football influence, helping analyse his games with Southport Sharks.

Brendan is still actively involved in football, playing in an over-30s competition with Surfers Paradise.
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Better than Beams ;)

from the Gold Coast Stingrays 2008 awards night...

U18 AWARD WINNERS
U18 WINNER BEST & FAIREST - JESSE HABERFIELD
U18 RUNNER UP BEST & FAIREST - DAYNE BEAMS
U18 MOST IMPROVED - FRED SLEETH
U18 BEST TEAM PLAYER - ELLIOTT BATH
U18 PLAYERS PLAYER - DANIEL RAMAGE

2008 GOLD COAST STINGRAYS ALL STAR TEAM
FB: BEN DOVEY MARC LOCK ELLIOTT BATH
HB: ADAM McKENZIE KODY O'HEA BRODY HABERFIELD
C: DANIEL RAMAGE TOM DAVIDSON JESSE HABERFIELD
HF: HAMISH CATHIE FRED SLEETH SAM ROBERTSON
FF: MATTHEW HENEKER RORY THOMPSON DANIEL CROSS
RUCKS: JOSHUA KOLKA DAYNE BEAMS MATTHEW FREEMAN
INT/CH: LUKE SHREEVE MAX DAVIS CHRIS TALBOT HAMISH WATTS
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"Home Boys"

http://www.realfooty.com.au/news/news/home-boys/2008/08/02/1217097610649.html

JESSE Haberfield has made a couple of life-defining phone calls in the past few weeks. First, the 17-year-old called a friend in Tasmania. They spoke about football and his mate mentioned that a couple of clubs had spoken to him recently. They both wondered if, this time next year, he could be playing for an AFL team.

"It's pretty amazing, when you think about it like that," said Haberfield. "When you think that people you know might be playing AFL footy so soon. It's hard to imagine. We were talking about the clubs, and what they told him, and I was just happy. I felt really good for him."

Haberfield's second call was to another friend, Jack Stanlake, with whom he goes to high school and has known since he was 12. Both boys had been asked to sign on with GC17, to become the Gold Coast team's first official players - along with Cairns boy Charlie Dixon - and it meant they had a big choice to make.

Signing would mean staying at home, in the warmth, near the water and with their family and friends. It would mean getting to watch a brand new AFL team built around them, earning some handy cash - $75,000 for both of their first two years - and having a guaranteed place on the new team's first senior list. It would mean grabbing a little place in history.

But it would also mean giving up on their dream to be drafted in November, and - you never know - playing AFL football in the next year or two. And experiencing all that comes with a move so far from home. And having to watch their friends make it before the team they play even exists.

What to do?

In the end, it was easy. "I rang Jack the night before we signed. I knew what I was going to choose, but I said 'what are you gonna do?' just to make sure," said Haberfield, a brave, hard-at-it midfielder who loomed as a possible late-round draftee this year and whose family moved to the Gold Coast from Geelong 10 years ago.

"He said 'let's do it' and I said 'why not, let's do it together'. I just tossed around whether I had a chance of getting drafted, which I think I did, a slight chance, but doing it this way I get to stay at home and have the chance to be a part of something new.

"It's an advantage for me, I think. A lot of kids that get drafted move away and are under all this pressure to fit in and live with new people and then they have to push themselves forward as footy players. I think being here will give me my best chance of making it, so it was pretty easy thing to do."

Similar thoughts ran through Dixon's mind. A few years ago, playing AFL was not something the 200-centimetre teenager really thought possible. Dixon lived in Cairns, played mostly basketball and looked tall, gangly and a little out of shape when he did get onto the football field.

But last year, his interest in basketball began to wane. He started playing more football, and then moved to Brisbane, to live with his older brother and play alongside him at Redlands. He put his carpentry apprenticeship, which was eating up 50 hours a week and draining him of energy, on hold for a while, and decided to see if he could get himself drafted.

Then, this all came along. "It's happened pretty fast, but I still feel a long way off the AFL. This is perfect for me because it gives me a bit of time to really work hard and improve myself and there's this prize at the end of it," said Dixon. Mark Browning, the Queensland talent manager, thinks he is a little like Kurt Tippett, another ex-basketballer, in the way he moves his arms up and around approaching players.
"If I become good enough, I'll get to be in the first ever Gold Coast team, and that would be a pretty historical thing. It means you don't have to go through that uncertainty of the draft and wondering if you're going to end up in Perth or Melbourne.

"I found it hard even moving to Cairns to down here, so to go another step would have been pretty tough. Now, we sort of know that if we keep improving then there's something at the end of it for us." And to get paid to do it? "For an 18-year-old that's pretty sensational really."

Like Dixon and another under-18 teammate Dayne Beams - who knocked back the GC17 offer and has decided to enter the draft - Stanlake had a few clubs suggest he take his chances this year, and not wait until 2011 to see if he could cut it.

The half-forward, who has lived in Surfers Paradise for the past six years, was tempted. "When they say things like that it's so exciting, but it was also a bit scary to think about moving away from home at only 17 years of age," said the teenager, whose father Warren played a single game for Footscray back in 1981.

Stanlake is also a talented left-arm bowler, has played in state cricket sides since he was 12 and has been told he can keep playing cricket for six or nine more months. That played a small part in his decision. It was only last year that he made his first representative football side, the Queensland under-16 team, but he followed that up with an under-18 spot this season and started to think of bigger things.

"It made me think twice, when the other clubs spoke to me, but then I calmed down and thought about it some more. I'm probably not that close to playing in the AFL and looking at the two options, it just seemed like the better pathway for me, the best choice.

"To be doing it with Jesse makes it pretty special, too. We've known each other for such a long time and to be in the first Gold Coast AFL side together one day would be pretty awesome, it would be a big feeling.

"Even now, we don't know what's going to happen down the track, but it's a pretty special thing and a historical thing to be part of. It'll be good now to see who becomes the coach and who our other teammates will end up being. It's exciting, but I feel pretty lucky. It feels like a pretty big compliment, to me."
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Yeah it's just I know like his family and stuff. He has 2 younger brothers Brodie and Cassaddy! Cassaddy made the stingrays team this year and Brodie the handle bars on his bike went into his stomach. He is missing the season or coming back like last 2 rounds.
 
Why did this guy not make it?

Did he get a pay out from the 3rd year of his contract?

What was the problem etc.
 
Another good article from Emma Quayle explains why he didn't make it.

All That Glitters
...
Like Dixon and Stanlake, Haberfield had signed a three-year contract guaranteeing him a place on the inaugural AFL list. At the end of the season, he was told there was no real point in staying. As much as the coaches loved him as a kid, he hadn't developed enough physically, and they simply couldn't see him making it. You'll be better off, they told him, getting started on the rest of your life. His management negotiated a payout and all of a sudden that guaranteed spot was gone.
...
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http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/all-that-glitters-20110408-1d7zp.html
 

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