User:The-Pope/Lochlan Veale

Lochlan Veale (born 4 March, 1985) is a former Australian rules football player who was drafted by the Hawthorn Football Club in the 2002 AFL Draft with pick 65 from the Geelong Falcons in the TAC Cup. Solidly built, he was big enough to fill key position roles and played most of his football in defence.

Lochlan was thrust into the spotlight during the 2003 trade week, where he was a part of a lopsided three-way deal involving Hawthorn, Essendon and the Western Bulldogs. In the deal Hawthorn gained Danny Jacobs, Essendon gained Mark Alvey and the number six selection in the draft and the Bulldogs officially only received Veale, but also gained an undertaking by Hawthorn that they would not trade Jade Rawlings to any other club, allowing the Bulldogs to select him with the first selection in the pre-season draft. This specifically prevented Rawlings from switching to his preferred club, the Kangaroos where his brother Brady played. Whilst not strictly against the AFL rules, many saw this cross-draft trading as not being in the spirit of the trading system. This deal became known as the The Veale Deal.

In 2006 the AFL changed the drafting and trading rules to allow clubs to trade draft picks alone, rather than require them to include a player in all trades.

After missing the start of the 2004 season with a groin injury, Veale spent the remainder of the season playing for the Bulldog's reserves side, Werribee Football Club, and was delisted at the end of the year.

In 2009 he returned to Colac to play for the Colac Tigers in the Geelong Football League