Hawthorn...The Avengers
Don’t ya love Cyril?
It’s a rhetorical question of course. And I don’t mean a fleeting infatuation, teenage crush or One Direction type hysteria; I mean love. Deep, profound love. In an otherwise forgettable match, all the highlights belonged to Cyril with his zip, his chase, his tackles and his six beautiful goals. Oh sure, Buddy kicked five, but they were all from within 15 metres, and he missed several set shots along the way. Yeah, yeah, Hodge played with his usual poise and courage, Sewell and Sam were good in the middle, Lewis stopped Dal Santo, Birch was bringing it out of the backline, The Rough used his strength and insouciance, and Savage, Smith and Shiels gave us some run and alliteration, but it was Cyril who hogged the highlight reel.
Leading into the match, The Age ran a vendetta against the Hawks. Everyone had an opinion; Robert Walls said they weren’t hard enough, Garry Lyon said they weren’t quick enough; Germaine Greer said they didn’t dress well enough. Honestly, I was just waiting for Caroline Wilson to tease us for being the toilet team – though that sounds more like something Robbo would run with in the Herald-Sun . (The People’s paper of course was too busy trying to revive the Milne/Montagna sexual misconduct allegations to worry too much about match-ups and midfields).
By now of course these scribes will have read my previous post about the significance of the number 23 and they’ll know that none of their contested ball stats, their inside 50s, their tackle counts or spread diameters matter – it’s all in the numbers, the Hawks are for the flag in 2012. Having said that, it came as a relief to win, and we pretty much have Cyril to thank for it.
In a week where The Avengers broke box office records and brought bad guys to justice, the Hawks did their own impression of this force for Good. We may not have saved the planet from alien invasion but we saved ourselves from finals oblivion.
In The Avengers you’ve got Captain America using his shield to block attacks and repel with force, which pretty much describes Luke Hodge’s game; Hulk uses his strength to smash opponents, clearly Jordan Lewis over Dal Santo, Hawkeye is the sharp-shooter, so Buddy’s takes his part, accuracy notwithstanding, Thor throws his hammer and shoots lightning, and I see The Rough in this role, Ironman , the futurist and smartarse uses his one-liners and repulsing orbs, just as Guerra did, while Nick Fury (who sounds like he might be the singer in a punk band) is the organiser and strategist who assembles the team, so Clarko is obviously the man here. As for Black Widow, well I suppose it comes down to who looks best in a leather body suit. You might have to delve into your own perverse obsessions here, but as much as I love the Hawks, I can’t see any of them rivalling Scarlett Johansson. Not since Dermie anyway.
Anyway, the point is that there’s no Cyril equivalent in The Avengers, and you can’t help thinking that they’d be a more effective unit with someone boasting his particular evasive skills, chase downs and deadly accuracy. If nothing else, he’d certainly help them wrap up the deal in less than 2.5 hours.
At the risk of taking The Avengers analogy too far (and it was either them or one Direction), my youngest son points out that if you take the H, A, W and N, out of HAWTHORN, you’ve got THOR. My friend’s young daughter on the other hand spent the best part of the third quarter happily talking about and looking at pictures of One Direction, and in particular Niall – the blonde one – whom she pronounced as the cutest. He looks a bit like Sam Mitchell in skinny jeans.
There’s not too much to really say about the night: it was tight and crowded in close, and there was a fair bit of niggle, though this better describes the bar area at the London Tavern beforehand than the game itself. The Hawks got an early edge and held onto it, with only Koschitzke keeping the Saints within reach until the Hawks broke away at the last.
It was neither the worst Hawthorn St.Kilda game - that honour belongs to May 2007, widely regarded as the worst match ever, which Jeff Kennett called "appalling" and Nick Riewoldt labelled the "shame game." Nor was it the best, think the 1971 second-semi or Grand Final, both thrillers, both narrow Hawthorn victories, with the Grand Final regarded as one of the toughest matches ever.
Or even the most remarkable, some will recall Princes Park in 1977 when Hawthorn kicked 41 behinds – winning 25-41-191 to 16-7-103, which remains a record for the most behinds in a match. Under cover of night the following week, maddened Hawks fans climbed the fence at Glenferrie and chopped down the point posts. One dreads to think what we might have kicked had Buddy been at full forward that afternoon.
Then there’s the 1999 clash at Waverley, when the Hawks overhauled a 53 point deficit midway through the second quarter to win by 13 points, in what was then a record comeback. Or the 2010 match where the first ever interchange infringement resulted in a Rioli goal being reversed and St.Kilda kicking a goal at the other end to draw the match.
If this reads like a litany of Hawthorn triumphs, it simply echoes the long dominance we enjoyed over St.Kilda in the 80s, as both sides hovered at opposing ends of the ladder. Between round 12 1979 and round 22 1989, Hawthorn strung together 20 consecutive wins over the Saints, finally losing by just three points in May 1990 at Moorabbin (when Russell Morris – then a Hawk – missed a shot in the final seconds). This winning streak was, and may still be, a record for one club over another.
Hawthorn and St.Kilda share a rich and storied past as well as a few personalities, most famously Allan Jeans who coached St.Kilda to its only premiership in 1966, and then coached Hawthorn to three in the 80s. Among the players to have worn both the brown and gold stripes and the St.Kilda tri-colour are Peter Everitt, Russell Greene, Russell Morris, Stuart Trott and Brent Guerra.
So there’s as much that unites these two teams as sets them apart, but I’m happy we at least found some separation from them in the final quarter on Saturday.
Final scores: Hawthorn 18 15 123 d St.Kilda 13 10 88
Buddy goal tally - 5, Total = 16
What we loved: Cyril
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