Round 4 - Hawthorn v Fremantle

Aurora Stadium, Launceston. Saturday 20 April 2013


The overlap of the Hawthorn Fremantle match with the Richmond Collingwood match set up possible confrontations in pubs showing Fox Sports. Not wanting to become involved in disputes with publicans and patrons about which match should be shown on their big screen, and fearing I’d be outnumbered and outferaled, I arranged to watch the game with other like-minded Hawks fans at my friend Chan-Tha’s.

Sure Channel 7 was showing the match on delay, but who can watch second quarter action unfolding in a time warp when a frantic final term might be underway? So it was off to Chan-Tha’s. And besides, her TV is so big the players are actually larger than life.

Of course this necessitated driving from Essendon to Richmond, through several iterations of road works and detours, plus the inevitable football traffic converging on the MCG. So the trip took 1.5 hours, roughly twice what it would have taken to fly to Launceston to watch the game in person. As a result I ended up listening to the first quarter on SEN in the car.

Thanks to the miracle of Optus TV, however, I was able to relive the first quarter action later. And it was worth doing so. In the opening seven minutes the Hawks didn’t manage a single entry inside 50, but in the ensuing five minutes, thanks largely to Cyril Rioli, we’d got it in there five times and scored 4.1, all of which happened while I was stuck on a small stretch of Hoddle Street.

Hoddle Street: where all the first quarter action happened

Freezing out Freo

The great thing about playing Fremantle in Launceston is that it takes the Dockers an entire quarter to thaw out – a fact highlighted by Tom Harley on Channel 7 when he informed viewers that in each of their past three visits to Launceston, Fremantle have failed to kick a goal in the first quarter. So Aurora is not so much a fortress for us, but a sort of ice cave that immobilises unwitting teams from balmier climes, just like Mr Freeze’s hideouts in Batman.

One of Fremantle’s behinds came from a free kick to their ruckman, Griffin, after a ruck infringement against David Hale. It was hard to spot the infringement, but in explaining the reason to Hale, the umpire seemed to say that it was because Hale was “looking at” the Fremantle ruckman. Now my knowledge of the finer points of the rules is probably scratchy, but I was previously unaware you could be penalised for “looking at” your opponent. Really, a decision like that deserved a goal.

The Members stand at Aurora 

Life of Poo 

The umpires weren’t the only ones making strange decisions (and I should point out here – I have no argument with the umpires this season. If anything Hawthorn is getting a better deal than ever before – just ask the Collingwood supporters. Keep up the good work boys, and Chelsea!) Far stranger was Buddy’s decision when running into an open goal – about 10 metres out - to handball over to The Poo in the goal square where he was duly mown down by Fyffe and the ball bobbled across the line for a point.

Moments later, The Poo took a great mark on the line and attempted a banana, which flew across the face of goal and snuck in for another behind. So in the space of two minutes, The Poo had two shots at goal from an aggregate distance of about 5 metres, and scored two points.

Fortunately Buddy reassessed his priorities and the next time he gathered possession, just outside 50, he bombed it through.

Life of Schoe

More disturbing was Schoenmakers going down with a season ending knee injury.  To give him his full name, the ‘much maligned Schoenmakers’ was playing a good game when he buckled his knee in a routine contest.  Not since Zac Dawson has someone copped so much criticism for being outmarked by an opponent a foot taller, but Schoenmakers does a pretty good job each week and has been playing well this year.

His injury is a particular shame at this point when he’s got his hair to sit with just the right sort of jaunty foppishness that could see him cast in Brideshead Revisitied.

Schoenmakers’ absence was just one reason why Fremantle was getting back into the game. Indeed, after establishing a 30 point lead by quarter time, the margin barely strayed from that figure, hovering somewhere between 24 and 36 points for much of the game.

With the state of the game in a sort of stasis, the casual viewer had more time to focus on the peripheral action, such as who is the expressionless girl in the Hawthorn box with Clarko? Is Ross Lyon in the box by himself, and what is he muttering to himself, and just what are Basil Zempilas and Hamish McLachlan going on about?

Burgoyne fetishists 

I know this is Channel 7’s C team, with the exception of Tom Harley who actually knows what he is talking about, but some of the commentary was insightful for all the wrong reasons.

Show us ya socks!

After Shaun Burgoyne’s second goal, Tom Harley and Craig Bolton inventoried some of his many qualities as a footballer, such as his work as a midfielder and finishing, to which Basil Zempilas added, “An immaculate looking footballer, isn’t he Burgoyne; he wears those socks so high.” Now, do I detect a wee tinge of regret from an ankle fetishist, or is it just that Basil has an eye for well-worn hosiery? Imagine how impressed he’d be if he saw Burgoyne in fishnets or a matching bra and briefs set.

Continuing on the Burgoyne theme (and the reason they were obsessing with Burgoyne I might add is that along with Birchall, he was playing a fantastic game), Hamish added, “Very difficult name to say fast repetitively, Shaun Burgoyne. Say it five times really quick.”

Firstly, the degree of difficulty seems relatively low to me, compared to saying, for example, Basil Zempilis Basil Zempilis Basil Zempilis Basil Zempilis Basil Zempilis. Or even Hamish McLachlan Hamish McLachlan Hamish McLachlan Hamish McLachlan Hamish McLachlan. And secondly, I’m puzzled at the circumstances whereby someone might be compelled to say ‘Shaun Burgoyne’ five times in quick succession…unless you’re dashing past him on the wing calling for the ball of course, and it’s my guess that neither Basil or Hamish will ever be in that position.

Both commentators also seemed mightily impressed by the coincidence of two brothers, Stephen and Bradley Hill, playing for opposing teams, despite this phenomenon being relatively commonplace in the era of the draft – the Selwoods, the Reids, the Tucks, the Reiwoldts (ok they’re cousins, but you get the point).

And it’s not even new; after leaving Hawthorn, Kelvin Matthews played for Geelong against his brother Leigh in the 70s. Hamish went on to say, “The Hill brothers, sounds like you’re describing a winery in the Barossa Valley”. Clearly the cold and a fairly mundane match were beginning to get to Hamish by this point and he was yearning to quaff a soft, buttery Shiraz on the flight home. But even so, I would have thought that with two Western Australians under discussion, perhaps Margaret River might have been a better vintner's  reference?

Show Basil a map of Tassie

And I shouldn’t overlook Basil’s opening gambit at the beginning of the telecast, “Welcome to beautiful Hobart”. So beautiful it looks like Launceston. He tried to make up for it by saying ‘Launceston’ incessantly for a few minutes afterwards, just to prove he knew where he was, but it was too late by then – he’d put his big Western Australian hoof in it by then. He may or may not realise the ferocity of the north south rivalry in Tasmania, but it’s a bit like a touring rock band playing in Melbourne and saying “Hello Sydney!” Someone really needs to show Basil a map of Tassie.

Launceston is at the top, Basil

Bend it like Crowley

The friendly and well intentioned, if somewhat ignorant prattle of these two (again I excuse Tom Harley), was nearly enough to distract viewers from the slightly alarming development that Fremantle closed the lead to a mere 17 points with 13 minutes still to play.  Cue Buddy – a nice mark and goal.

Then the highlight of the match, and the only snippet likely to figure in footage shown on the ‘round by round’ segment on Brownlow night; Hodge, uncharacteristically indecisive, was caught by Ballantyne in the pocket, the ball spilled and Ballantyne lying on the ground got a neat handball to Crowley who was standing in the centre of the goals, pretty much on the goal line – at most he was 20 centimetres out. Crowley raised his boot to volley it through from mid-air, but somehow managed to hook it at such a severe right angle that it hit the post! Perhaps he should have headed it.

Heartened by this degree of incompetence, Hawthorn slammed on three quick goals: two to Roughead and one to Breust to close out the match by 42 points – coincidentally, the answer to the ‘meaning of Life’ in Douglas Adams’ trilogy The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, proving that even in a seemingly innocuous match, Hawthorn operates on a level of cosmic significance.


Final scores: Hawthorn 18 10 118  d  Fremantle 11 10 76


What we learned - Basil Zempalis is a leg man who likes his footballers neatly turned out.


What we already knew - Avoid Hoddle Street when there's a big game at the G. Actually, just avoid Hoddle Street.