JESSE Hogan says dual Geelong premiership player Tom Hawkins offered some sound advice during the 2014 season in how best to deal with a back injury.

Hogan, who has yet to make his AFL debut after a back injury forced him on the sidelines in 2014, met with the star Cat – who has also had back issues – during the year, which helped him considerably.  

He said it came out of the blue, but the connection was made via the same management company.

“My manager brought it up and I thought ‘that’d be awesome if he had enough time in his busy schedule to give me a little pep talk’,” he told Dee TV.

“It was awesome just to see how he went through it and to see how he’s playing now – he’s flying.

“It’s good to see someone who’s gone through a back injury and they came out a year later and played good footy. It was just awesome just to talk to someone in the same position as me and get an insight into it.

Hawkins told Hogan that it was important to have a mixture of people to talk to about the injury.

“The first thing he said was ‘get good people around you’. He said ‘if you get a good base of people around you that you can talk to and not just rely on one person’,” he said.

“He gave me his number and said ‘if you ever want to talk about anything, just to text and I’m happy to reply or give me a call’.

“I took what he said in and everything’s been pretty smooth since then.”