There are two sides to the Jesse Hogan story. The first, and most critical, is the health of Hogan himself.

Any person suffering from a mental health issue is entitled to the best treatment and understanding, and Hogan is no different, regardless of a playing contract he has with a high-profile football club. But the second is the Fremantle Football Club’s side of this.

The jobs of the senior management of the Dockers hinge on their ability to get Hogan back out on the field and football functional.

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Hogan deserves the time that he needs. But in a football sense, he will be the straw that breaks the back of this administration if it doesn’t get him right.

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He comes on the heels of the recruiting disaster that Harley Bennell has been. The inclusions of Cam McCarthy and Shane Kersten haven’t exactly borne great fruit either.

With the exception of Kersten, recruited for depth, Fremantle have pursued high-risk, high-reward targets.

While football manager Peter Bell was unwilling to say whether the club was aware of Hogan’s anxiety issues when he arrived, the implied risk was obvious — why else would Melbourne leave the door ajar for the departure of a young forward who had just kicked 47 goals in less than a full season.

When you take the player, you take the risk. If they come off you look like a genius, and if they blow up in your face there must be consequences.

The message at the Dockers should be clear and unequivocal — get this bloke right or face those consequences.

That message applies for reasons that stretch well beyond the Hogan issue. Lachie Neale’s departure from the club was not about his relationship with coach Ross Lyon or about his relationship with Nat Fyfe.

It was, according to sources close to Neale, about his concern that there were too many players at Fremantle who fell short of the professional and disciplinary standards required to take a young team back up the ladder.

The West Australian is aware that Hogan has been on the Fremantle leadership group’s radar on at least one previous occasion over the summer for behaviour that was at best concerning and at worst extremely self-destructive.

Rebuilds are notoriously difficult for football clubs because they will look wrong for some time even when you are getting them right. The on-field performance of young players will look wrong. Your win-loss will look wrong and your spot on the ladder will look wrong.

But there is so much at Fremantle that looks wrong at the moment that it is hard to believe they are getting this right.

The injury list is too long and the soft-tissue injuries to Stephen Hill and Bennell have become sagas.

Bennell, who played 81 of 110 games at Gold Coast, has played two of a possible 66 at Fremantle.

The burst of 23 unanswered goals conceded against Geelong at GMHBA Stadium in a 133-point hiding last year was a soul-destroying moment for the club.

It was a failure on an epic level. Chris Bond, the respected football manager who along with chief executive Steve Rosich had helped build the club that Lyon inherited and took to a grand final, might have left at the end of 2018 anyway, but that performance made his move inevitable.

Rosich and Lyon effectively have their futures at the club tied to the ability to get Hogan back up and firing now, and the team up and firing with him.

An ongoing debacle with Hogan is not going to look great on Bell’s resume either.

Football administrations trade on hope and trust. The hope that success is possible under their guidance and the trust that they will make enough good decisions to make it possible. Before they retreat into the bunker and circle the wagons on this one the Dockers’ hierarchy need to ask themselves on what basis should their fans invest that hope and trust in them now?