Between the Rounds - Kennett's Other Curse

"The Devil takes the wheel of the Cadillac,
and Jeff climbs in the back"
'Deanna' - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds
- photo: heraldsun.com

Much has been made of Jeff Kennett’s pronouncement on the eve of the 2009 season that Geelong didn’t have the mental toughness to defeat Hawthorn in big games. Predictably we haven’t beaten them in any of our 10 meetings since, finding any number of ways to lose in the last minute, including twice with the very last kick, in what has become known as Kennett’s curse.

Of course the more oxygen breathed into the notion of the Kennett curse, the more potency we grant to Jeff Kennett’s pronouncements, and the more he’ll feel vindicated to keep making them. Reason enough then to defeat Geelong at last and end the ‘curse’.

Less known, however, is Kennett’s other curse. After winning the 2008 premiership, Jeff Kennett, in exuberant celebratory mode, and possibly under the influence of a particularly ripe herbal tea, announced that Hawthorn would never trade any players from the 2008 premiership side.

Since then though, the players who represented Hawthorn that day have been slowly disappearing, one by one off the list. Of the 22 players selected to represent Hawthorn on that glorious day, 11 of them, exactly half, are no longer with the club; either traded, debilitated or delisted. And of those who were traded to other clubs, none have performed at a level anything like their premiership heroics, and many of them have been afflicted by career interrupting injury or loss of form. What's happened to them?

self-harm - part of the curse?

Shane Crawford – retired

Stephen Gilham – traded to GWS

Trent Croad – retired through injury

Mark Williams – traded to Essendon, never to play a half decent game again

Brent Renouf – traded to Port Adelaide (oh the inhumanity!), rarely plays

Campbell Brown – traded to Gold Coast Suns, has been suspended for nearly as many games as he’s played.

Stuart Dew – retired

Chance Bateman – retired through injury

Robert Campbell – retired through injury

Rick Ladson – retired

Clinton Young – left for Collingwood under free agency – has been injured ever since.

If you include the emergencies for that day; Tom Murphy (delisted), Simon Taylor (delisted) and Travis Tuck (delisted), that’s 14 of 25 that are no longer with us.

Oh my god, what's happened to him?

Despite Jeff Kennett’s grand familial gesture, the team that won on that famous day has been gradually dismantled until it bears very little resemblance to the current side. In fact only seven members of that premiership team will be out there tonight.

So while everyone is focused on the Kennett curse relating to match results, are we perhaps overlooking an equally sinister Kennett pronouncement that has seen fit, young men with bright futures drop one by one; some succumbing to mysterious career ending injuries, others to irreversible form slumps, one to GWS and in one particularly tragic case, a player becoming so brain-addled he elected to go to Collngwood, where he has since been incapacitated?

Is this the other Kennett curse? A curse so virulent it strikes down men in their prime and casts them off; takes them from the comfort of Hawthorn’s bosom and forsakes them in the wilderness. A curse that robs them of their futures and condemns them to the badlands of retirement or worse, Port Adelaide.

We must find a way to reverse these curses and end the evil influence of their instigator. And quickly, because among the players left are Franklin, Hodge, Mitchell, Roughead, Lewis, Rioli and Sewell. We need a fix before the curse strikes them.

On a side note, Geelong has nine players from the side that lost in 2008 playing tonight, 10 if you count Josh Hunt who is an emergency for the match.

And of Hawthorn’s line-up tonight, nine players have never played in a side that has defeated Geelong, though admittedly one of them is ex-Cat Simpkin. There are possibly others too, depending on whether Gunston, Gibson, Lake, Hale or Burgoyne played in winning teams against Geelong with their former clubs.

Let's hope they get the chance tonight. Go Hawks!