Hille played 19 games and basically shared the ruck duties with Paul Salmon in 2002 after Alessio missed a large proportion of the season with a shoulder and achilles injury. ""Hille has put some size on, he has got the mobility and some experience under his belt. Even though we had Paul Salmon back last year, Hille played 90% of the games,"" Sheedy said.
""David Hille is probably the number one ruck option at this stage but we need Alessio to play to his ability and he hasn't done that enough yet. Unfortunately he has been injured a lot. I have been criticised for keeping players around for too long but we need him to give us a couple of years like Dean Wallis did late in his career. If he can do that we will be very happy. John Barnes did the same sort of thing when he was cut from Geelong's list,"" Sheedy said.
Alessio was redrafted by the Bombers in the 2002 National Draft after being delisted at the end of the season. “Alessio got a rocket when he was dropped off the list and no one else wanted him at the draft. So he knows how other clubs feel about him. He would be thinking that they don't think he is any good and he has the opportunity to prove a few people wrong,"" the four time premiership coach said.
""I expect Alessio to play very well this season - if he doesn't I will be very disappointed. You can only be told and warned and shown so often....the other clubs have showed they don't want him so he needs to cop it on the chin, grit his teeth and show people that he has the ability to play. Otherwise the other clubs were right (at the National draft) and we were wrong.”
