DAVID HALE
KangaroosBorn: 22 May 1984
Height: 201cm
Weight: 104cm
Recruited from: Broadbeach/Coolangatta
Draft Details: Selection #7 (1st round) 2001 National Draft
AFL Debut: Rd 5 2003 – Kangaroos v Carlton, Telstra Dome (26 April)
Jumper Number: 31
AT A GLANCE: David Hale was born to be an oarsman. His father Ted was a member of the Australian rowing ‘eight’ at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, was Australian single-sculls champion from 1976-82 and also won national championships in double sculls, quad-sculls and eights. Luckily for the AFL, Hale Jnr took a different sporting focus. And for the Kangaroos, who drafted him at No.7 in the 2001 AFL National Draft. Born in Tasmania but a Queenslander from his early childhood, Hale was always going to be a footballer. He grew up near a football ground and it was his No.1 sporting love from age six. He began at Coolangatta and in 2000 won selection in the AIS/AFL Academy squad which included fellow Queenslander Joel Macdonald and interstaters of the caliber of Luke Hodge, Luke Ball, Nick Dal Santo and Graham Polak. He switched to Broadbeach in 2001 to play in the AFLQ State League and from there won State U18 selection and was drafted by the Roos at No.7 in the 2001 AFL National Draft. It was a selection which put him in rare company. Twenty-tour years on from the introduction of the National Daft Hale is one of just four Queenslanders taken in the top 10 from the national talent pool alongside Nick Riewoldt (No.1 in 2000), Tom Williams (No.6 in 2004) and David Armitage (No.9 in 2006).. He made his AFL in 2003 in front of 38,000 people at the Telstra Dome, one of three senior games in his second season at the club, and added a further 11 in 2004. He ‘arrived’ as a regular senior player in 2005, playing every game, including his first final, and consolidating the No.1 ruck role. It was more of the same in 2006 as he completed another full season before an injury-plagued start to the 2007 campaign, coupled with the emergence of Hamish McIntosh as an All-Australian contender in the ruck, saw him play more as a key forward, with an occasional run on the ball Strong and mobile for a big man, he was something of a public face of the Kangaroos push into the Gold Coast market in 2007, writing a weekly column for the Gold Coast Bulletin, and was chosen in the 2007 Queensland Team of the Year, chosen for the first time on State of Origin guidelines.
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