Hartley grew up in NSW and when first drafted to Collingwood he found all the changes difficult. He had never spent more than a week away from home, but was soon living in a new city in a share house with three other young Magpies who lived and breathed the game. Hartley said he left NSW with a big head, believing he was the next big thing in the AFL, but when he got to the Pies was starstruck. He played four NAB Cup games for the club, before a series of shoulder injuries and surgeries kept him on the sidelines for the best part of two years and he was delisted at the end of 2013. Harley has nothing negative to say about Collingwood – he was immature and unprepared for the pressure associated with being a professional athlete. Pre-seasons were challenging, he could keep up with the running but found it hard to keep up the work rate day in, day out. He also spent a lot of time alone in the gym during his long stints in rehabilitation, which was not easy. Being dropped by the Pies turned out to be a blessing in disguise, he said.



Not that it felt like it at the time. Hartley considered trying his luck at American football in the US, but his father convinced him to stay in Melbourne and give AFL another crack, so he joined Coburg in the VFL. The upside was that it was only then that he began feeling like a Melburnian, rather than a kid living away from home. He made some great friends in the team and played good football, the type that eventually saw him re-drafted, this time to Essendon. But he also did a lot of growing up during his years in the wilderness. He had to get a real job for the first time in his life. His parents had been keen for him to concentrate on school and sport while he was living at home, then he had gone straight to Collingwood. Hartley hired as a labourer – he was on call and did a variety of jobs, one of the worst ones was unpacking shipping containers. The comedown from the relative glamour of life as a professional footballer was hard. Really hard. He realised he did not want to be emptying shipping containers for the rest of his life. "I'd come home and just sit on the couch, just buggered," he said. "At Collingwood I took it for granted, I didn't realise how fantastic and awesome it was."

Hartley gained a new respect for the VFL players, who worked during the day and then trained at night and played on the weekend. When he was drafted to the Bombers at pick 68 at the end of 2015 he vowed to do everything differently. Part of that was taking his father's advice and pairing up with a player who was good in the gym and on the track and trying to match him. Fellow former rookie Paddy Ambrose was his man and it was a strategy that helped Hartley push himself harder than he had as a younger man. Playing with the Bombers' hastily thrown together team is very different to walking into a very established Collingwood club. He has formed a close friendship with Anthony Mcdonald-Tipungwuti, Essendon's other big discovery in an otherwise fairly dismal year. They are both quiet, Hartley said, they are the same age and they both are just at the start of their AFL careers. They kick the ball to each other at the start of each match. John Worsfold, too is unlike any other coach he has ever played under.