Friday 14 June, Etihad Stadium
Religious intolerance
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| Saint Luke - the only deity to follow - photoo: bigfooty.com |
But in addition to all of this, where footy also resembles religion is in the enmity that one creed’s adherents feel for another. Just as Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland don’t mix, or Jews and Muslims are antagonistic towards each other in the Middle East (well, anywhere really), so it is with footy fans.
AFL fans will often boast that one of the great things about our game is that fans of opposing sides can sit together at games without rancour or becoming aggressive and combative. There may not be the rioting and street fighting that you see in a European soccer fixture, or the need to separate fans of opposing teams, but there are other ways of showing disdain than through violence. For example, I harbour a long and enduring loathing of Carlton and consider being a Carlton fan to be a character flaw akin to being a perjurer or fraudster. This extends to the players obviously. I always quite liked Chris Judd until he left West Coast for Carlton. I don’t hold a grudge against players who are drafted against their will to play for Carlton, but Judd actively chose Carlton – as sure a sign of moral decrepitude as you can get in my view.
As a result, it’s no accident that none of my close friends support Carlton. Once I learn someone is a Carlton fan I know we have nothing in common and that we’ll never be close. Even though I show no outward sign of these feelings, except perhaps a slight sour expression, it’s barely detectable and I make heroic attempts to maintain civility, I remain as suspicious of Carlton fans as a Shiite might be of a Sunni.
Show us ya tatts!
Of course it follows that I consider Hawthorn fans to be like-minded sophisticates, sensitive souls who are pure of heart and mind, morally impeccable healers and, above all, good looking.
So it came as something of a shock when among those crowding on the post-match Craigieburn train were two Hawk fans, one in mid 20s, another say mid 30s, who spent the entire journey comparing not only their tattoos – which you could argue attests to a certain artistic élan, at least of a gritty urban variety – but the varying degrees of pain associated with branding the respective body parts.
“What about the behind the ear?” asked elder of younger, referring to the Hawks emblem branded there.
“Nah not too bad. Tell ya what hurt though. The chest…Geez what a killer” he said with relish. Here he lifted his shirt to reveal his stomach with large cursive font reading “Blood is thicker than water” (but not as permanent as ink I thought…or as nice as champagne).
“Fuck, that’s tough” said the elder admiringly, as if he’d never heard the saying before. Perhaps he hadn’t.
“I’ll tell ya what fucken hurts the most though,” continued the elder, “the fucking Achilles. Fuck man that hurt.
It’s like running a razor blade across your skin” Or a hot branding iron for that matter I thought.
And on they went with their inventory of tatts, discussing existing tatts, mates with tatts, plans for future tatts and their possible locations, with the elder pausing occasionally to comment again on how much the ‘fucken achilles’ hurts.
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| A Hawthorn flower tattoo - that's tough - photo: checkoutmyink.com |
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| That's what I call a Hawks tatt - photo: zimbio.com |
Horse sense
Okay, so not my type necessarily, but Hawthorn is a broad church and happily accommodates people of all tastes and talents. But even in this there are limits on what is acceptable. On the train on my way to the match I picked up a copy of MX and read an article in which Goo revealed that he has a habit of grabbing the microphone at weddings (presumably the reception) to sing ‘Horses’ by Daryl Braithwaite. This is not an idle occurrence; it's happened 12 times. Not only that, but Dazza is his favourite singer!
This certainly raises questions about Goo’s actual age – surely no one under 40 lists Dazza as their favourite singer. But far more disturbing are the questions it raises about his taste in music. Daryl Braithwaite! I imagine Buddy and Gibbo layin down the grooves with Jay-Z or Kanye in a weights session, or Stratts and Hilly working out to Daft Punk or Flume – Sammy and Hodge would be more your straight rock types, Chilli Peppers, Coldplay, – so it’s hard to imagine the reception Goo gets when he tunes the iPod to Sherbet’s Greatest Hits.
I reflected on this to distract myself from the forthcoming game, about which I held some fears. Coming off a bye and having played GWS, Gold Coast and Melbourne in the three weeks leading into the bye, I thought the Hawks might be a little bit vulnerable. Added to that, this was to be Chris Judd’s 250th game and Carlton must surely be fired up after blowing the previous week’s game against Essendon. Plus they haven’t beaten us since 2006, a match I recall as it happens. It was truly awful – Waite played well I trecall – and I was fearful of a repeat.
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| You can see why Goo likes them - that's Dazza far left - photo: tammytingles.com |
False dawn
I arrived late for the match and as I walked in to take my seats, the Hawks were already three goals up. My pre-match fears suddenly seemed stupid and misplaced, baseless anxieties borne of not having seen the Hawks in action for two weeks. Of course we were going to roll them. What was I thinking?
And then as I took my seat Breust took a good grab. ‘Keep it going Hawkers’ I thought. He missed. And from that moment on, 10 minutes into the first quarter, until 10 minutes into the third quarter when Eddie Betts pushed Stratton into Gibbs, gathered the ball and ran into goal, Carlton had added 10 goals to our 4 and it was all looking a little grim.
Along the way we’d turned it over, given away a 50 to Kreuzer for a goal, although it’s still unclear what the infringement was, fumbled and been out hustled and harassed by the Blues. One passage early in the third had us feeling anxious. After Waite kicked the opening goal of the third to extend the lead to 17 points, the Hawks were bringing the ball along the wing where Breust handballed to Hodge, missed him and the ball bobbled over the boundary. It didn’t look good.
Or sound good. The match was marred by the two blokes behind me – one Hawthorn, one Carlton –who yelled “Deliberate!” every time the ball went out of bounds. Every time. If you’ve ever watched a game of football you’ll know how often that is. Hilarious, right? All I can think of is that they must have gotten a laugh early on and desperate for approval, continued to shout it. The only real amusing moment came late in the final quarter by which time even they had grown tired of it and the umpire finally paid one.
True Faith
We needed something and as usual, it Sammy who took it upon himself to turn things around. Charging out from goal, Buddy grabbed the ball and handballed to Lewis who got it over to Sammy, who duly slotted one on the left. Nice one Sammy.
After an intervening goal to Betts, Duryea measured a beautiful 40 m pass to the Rough who marked and goaled. Then a telling passage; the Hawks won the ball in defence, Stratton beat Garlett on the wing, kicked it on to Buddy who beat Jamieson at half-forward who got it over to Hodge who right-footed it to the goal square where Gunston took the grab. This was followed by another attack culminating in Duryea kicking forward and getting flattened by Waite. The resulting free to the Rough put us in front.
The chorus of Carlton booing highlighted either how little football these fans have seen, or that they’ve become spoilt on a regular diet of cheap free kicks to Chris Judd over the years.
Brian Lake was combining well with Gibbo and Stratton and was playing a great game, taking a series of steadying marks in defence. But one of his limitations became apparent early in the final quarter when Brock Maclean, not exactly a speedster, took possession and ran a half circle with Lake giving chase and demonstrating the turning circle of the QEII. Maclean eventually put the ball on Armfield’s chest to help Carlton regain the lead.
From there though, the main men took over. Hodge, of course, put us in front. Then Buddy with a big mark and goal, then Buddy again running on to a pass from Lewis, and finally Hill taking a 40m pass from Rough at the end to seal the win.
A great win by the Hawks, but it wasn’t nearly as tight as some are making out. At least three of Carlton’s goals came from Hawthorn defensive clangers, Kreuzer goaled from a 50m penalty no one could see, Hawthorn missed at least four set shots. Add all this together a little differently and a 15 point win becomes a 60 point win. Really, we killed 'em.
Even so, the win was made extra special by Malthouse’s tantrum at the end. As gracious as ever, Malthouse ranted about umpiring, emphasising that he wasn’t taking anything away from Hawthorn, before proceeding to do just that. As my friend John observed, if you were hitch-hiking to Sydney and Mick Malthouse and Ivan Milat both stopped for you, you’d get in with Milat over Malthouse. His whingeing shows at least that he’s fitting in with the Carlton culture – if that’s not misusing the word – where the first word they learn isn’t ‘mummy’ or ‘daddy’ but “Fiftyyyyyy!”
At least Carlton is getting its fans back – John also observed that their membership suffered a terrible dip during Melbourne’s Gangland wars.
Body language
Of course all the talk post-match was about Hodge’s bump on Murphy that left the Carlton captain with a broken jaw. To everyone except Malthouse it was an accidental collision that could just as easily have caused an injury to Hodge. No one wants to see great players get hurt, and this was never more true than Friday night, when we all wished it was Malthouse, not Murphy, who sustained a broken jaw– if only to stop him whingeing.
Carlton sulking had also dominated the lead up to the match. With only six matches being played, there was so little footy content to fill the endless sports pages that we had four days of articles about Chris Yarran’s body language when he was the sub in the previous match. I didn’t see the match (I’m just happy one of either Carton or Essendon emerged as a loser) or indeed whatever display Yarran put on, but unless he actually mooned the crowd or the coach, I find it hard to see how this could possibly justify the amount of comment it provoked in the papers. It was nearly as tedious as the ALP’s leadership bickering.
Final scores: Hawthorn 15 12 102 d Carlton 13 9 87.
What we learned: if you’re going to get a tatt, behind the ear is ok, or on the arm. Even the foot’s ok. Just avoid the ‘fucking achilles’ – has anyone told Dane Swan.
What we already knew: the number 23 would make the key difference at Etihad this week. Not Buddy this time, but Bresciano, who opened the scoring for Australia against Jordan to help send us to the World Cup finals.
Melbourne: The CEO’s gone, the President resigned and at last Melbourne has sacked Mark Neeld. My God Caro must be relieved. From the opening bounce of any given season, Caro’s sole interest in football seems to be which coach will get sacked first. She’s been angling for Worsfold or Hird, but she’ll take Neeld. I wonder if she’ll now sit back and watch a game.
Of course she can’t rest yet. She’s still busy appointing Melbourne’s board. She seems determined that Jeff Kennett not be president. And I agree; I think he should be coach.
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