Maginness Hasn't Played Since Round 11. The 55% Who Wanted Him Dropped Called It Three Rounds Early.
Finn Maginness hasn't played since round 11. The community's 55% drop-him vote and the registry's tagging-role sell call both landed the same week — and both were right.
Maginness Hasn't Played Since Round 11. The 55% Who Wanted Him Dropped Called It Three Rounds Early.
The registry's R11 verdict was blunt: "sell into this relative good news before the axe falls." The same week, 55% of the community voted to drop him for Gunston or Perez. Three rounds of omission later, neither call looks like it jumped the gun.
Finn Maginness spent the first three rounds of 2026 as the textbook cash-cow trap — $244.8k, a 32 average, and an Hawthorn jumper he couldn't get into. Then round 7 happened: 95 points, 24 disposals at 83% efficiency, two goals against Gold Coast, and every "avoid" call in the registry flipped to "buy" overnight. Four rounds later he was tagging Kozzy Pickett, the breakout had evaporated, and the community had seen enough.
The R11 question: drop Maginness for Gunston or Perez?
The community question that did the rounds in R11 was direct: "Should Maginness be dropped to make way for Gunston, Perez, or Day returning to the Hawks team?" It pulled a healthy engagement score of 33 and settled into a clear majority position.
55% wanted him dropped outright for Gunston or Perez, full stop. The rationale across the thread was consistent — repeated turnovers, poor disposal, "a mile off AFL standard." The remaining stances weren't really arguing to keep Maginness either: 25% wanted Meek dropped as well now Chol was back from injury, and 13% wanted Bodie Ryan to keep his spot ahead of Maginness specifically. Add it up and almost the entire thread treated Maginness's place in the 22 as the one already up for grabs. The only live debate was who else should make way alongside him.
The registry flagged the role change two rounds earlier
This wasn't a cold take from the stands. The registry had already clocked the shift in Maginness's role before the R11 question went up.
Round 10 — 35 points against a 39 BE in a 39-point MCG blowout, 12 disposals at 58% efficiency, and a tagging job on Kozzy Pickett for the afternoon. The verdict was unambiguous: "A tagging role is a SuperCoach death sentence... the R7 breakout was the exception; this is his ceiling in the role Hawthorn have actually given him. Sell — the 95 is not coming back while he's tagging."
Round 11 — Maginness bounced back with 66, clearing his 38 BE for the first time since the breakout. On the surface, that's recovery form. The registry didn't buy it: "The structural issues haven't changed. Twelve disposals at 58%, a tagging role, and word is he's firmly on the Hawks' selection bubble with Day, Gunston, and Perez all pressing... sell into this relative good news before the axe falls."
That's the registry calling the omission in the same week the community was voting for it — both off a game where Maginness had just gone above his breakeven.
Three rounds, zero games
Round 12. Round 13. Round 14. No games. The 55% and the registry were both right, and not by a little — this isn't a one-week omission for rotation, it's three straight weeks out of the senior side.
Across the five games he did play this season, Maginness averaged 55 (32, 95, 47, 35, 66) — a number that looks respectable until you remember it's built on one outlier 95 and a tagging-role 66 that the registry had already flagged as the role's ceiling, not its floor. His price sits frozen around $260.8k-ish with a 38 BE, and neither number means anything while he's not picked.
The verdict
Nobody gets a prize for calling an omission after it's happened, but it's worth being honest about what the leading indicators actually were here. The R11 score of 66 looked like the good news — above BE, a step up from the 35. But "above BE" was never the question. The question was role and selection security, and on both of those the registry and the 55% camp were reading the same signals: a tagging brief that caps the ceiling, and a forward line at Hawthorn getting crowded with Day, Gunston and Perez all pushing for a recall.
If you're still holding Maginness, there's not much to do about it now — he's not turning into cash while he's a senior-list scratching. Wait and see for me on whether Hawthorn's forward mix settles enough to give him a path back; until there's actual team-selection news, the $260k-ish is just sitting there.
Updated: 14 June 2026. Data sourced from RookieBible intel registry.
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