Tom Swift, taken by the Eagles with the pick before Ballantyne, lasted only four seasons before retiring. "We wouldn't want him. You can't polish a word that Fremantle Football Club would rather I didn't use," was his succinct reply. I actually beg to differ (on the polishing perspective). But more on that in a tick. In the mean time, let's quickly reflect on one of those great quirks of the AFL draft, which I don't think gets reflected on enough. With the No. 21 pick of the 2008 National Draft, Fremantle took Ballantyne. With the No. 20 pick of the same draft, West Coast took Tom Swift. I'm not going to turn this into a Swift-bashing session. There's been enough of those already.

Still, it's a neat little sliding doors moment that the Eagles had the opportunity to get a small forward who would eventually allow Mark LeCras to spend more time in the midfield (no more Josh Hill or Jamie Cripps as his back-up/foil) and instead came up with a guy who played 34 games in four seasons and then retired to become a doctor. Back to Ballantyne. For the first five seasons of his AFL career he was the ultimate love him or hate him guy. You detested him if he wasn't yours. Which meant you made You Tube clips of him celebrating his "match-winning" goal that wasn't quite from the second western derby of 2011 (pretty damn funny, I have to admit). You adored him if he was yours (or you were Brian Taylor). During the first half of the 2012 season, unsure in which direction the Ross Lyon revolution was going, my mate Loony would watch Ballantyne scurry around after opponents at Freo home games, shake his head and mutter to himself "he's the only one that cares". It's much clearer now where Lyon is taking the Dockers. It isn't any clearer whether Ballantyne will ever find any middle ground in realm of public perception.

I don't know why I care about this. It shouldn't really be in my thoughts when there is a western derby on Saturday to be looking forward to. I guess I'm just at heart an idealist, who would hope that if Ballantyne didn't play for the team I supported, could still see enough in how he plays to appreciate what he brings to the game (much the same as a non-Geelong supporters can admire the gifts of Steve Johnson). Raw stats will tell you that Ballantyne is on track for a 50-goal season (something only the very best small forwards ever do). Watching last Saturday night's win over the Lions might have suggested to you that he actually does have some self-restraint (after goaling from a free kick, he shocked commentators by choosing to celebrate unremarkably with his teammates, rather than goad a Brisbane opponent). If you'd over-analysed weird little things in Freo games the way I tend to, you might have noticed this season he seems to be inventing his own position of "midget full-forward", where he gets isolated one-on-one inside-50 in a bizarro version of Pagan's Paddock (Needless to say, low delivery of the footy is a must. And there's a perverse thrill to be had in seeing Ballantyne's opponents gather the ball at ground level, then visibly panic when they realise they're about to be set upon by the footballing equivalent of an attack dog).

By pretty much every measure you could come up with, Ballantyne is a more polished whatever-you-choose-to-call-him than he was a year ago. And yeah, he still owes Freo one for his sub-par showing in last year's grand final, he has to stay out of trouble with the umpires and the tribunal and he has to prove he can do it consistently on the road (his career average is roughly two goals a game at home, only a little more than one goal in away games). But you know what? I messaged my old man the other night and asked if there was any reason why Ballantyne couldn't end up having the same kind of career Phil Matera did. His text back contained an obscure reference to "lacras", which I can only assume was meant to be LeCras, who was in no way part of the conversation. The more telling part of the reply, however, was that it's basic gist was "why not?" and it didn't contain one mention of the word that Fremantle Football Club would rather I didn't use. I'll take that as progress. Who knows maybe there will be a few more converts after Saturday afternoon?

NB: I wrote about three lines of this before I realised I was going to be accused of rampant trolling by Eagles fans. Know this: I really just want you to like Hayden Ballantyne. But I don't mind if you hate me for trying to make that happen. ***The content of this story has been updated to take into account the original use of a word that Fremantle Football Club would rather I didn't use. It started with "t" and ended with "d" and I'm sure if you've read this far, you'll realise it in no way reflected the opinion on Ballantyne of the author. Follow WAtoday on Twitter