Round 13 – Carlton v Hawthorn

MCG, Friday 13 June 2014

Brown and Gold Friday

  

It was Friday the 13^th and a full moon was rising in the night sky - a brace of evil portents for our match against Carlton. On top of that, Chris Judd was returning from a hamstring injury, Mick Malthouse was coaching his 700^th game and Carlton was celebrating its 150^th year as a football club - are they sure; this dates them back to 1864. Who did they play against, or is this when they won the bulk of their 16 premierships?

If these omens didn’t already send a shiver of dread down the spine of your average Hawks fan, the media had been reminding us all week that Carlton hadn’t defeated Hawthorn in any of their previous 10 meetings, a sequence dating back as far as 2006. The most obvious explanation for this happy string of victories is that we’ve been consistently better than them, however, the wicked pessimist inside me kept whispering that this run must end one day - and perhaps Black Friday with a full moon would be that day.

The worst omen, however, was not some paranormal superstition seeping out of the supernatural world, but the more prosaic problem that Jack Gunston was a late withdrawal for Hawthorn with a calf injury. As if we didn’t have enough injury problems.

Chan-Tha meets Jack Gunston, Brad Sewell and Cyril Rioli atAdidas Store, Bourke Street Mall

A more positive omen was footage during the week of Carlton training in Socceroos tops. I’m not sure what the thinking was behind that, but given Australia’s likely chance of success at the World Cup, it hinted at a team that didn’t plan on winning. They might have been better off wearing Italian ‘Azzurri’ tops – not only does it stand for ‘The Blues’, but Carlton is as synonymous with Italy as it is with Australia, and at least the Italians have a chance in the World Cup that had gotten underway that morning.

When the game got underway Chris Judd swung into action, pushing Luke Breust squarely in the back without getting penalised - the umpires and Judd immediately re-establishing their seamless working relationship. Soon after Judd was dishing off handballs and dashing through the centre to deliver the ball to Mitch Robinson for the first goal of the game. When he made his first return for the season in round 5 he’d racked up about 10 possessions in five minutes before injuring his hamstring - not that I wished that upon him, but perhaps a slight niggle or two, a troubling headache or nagging cough - something to slow his progress at least. Actually I suspected he wouldn’t be able to keep this up, or even if he could, his teammates wouldn’t be able to stay with him. The way he started was a stark reminder not only of how good a player he is, but the seam of bad luck the Hawks were mining. Why was he was suddenly available to play against us?

By the time Rough snapped our first goal - after Cyril Rioli and Shaun Burgoyne combined to get the ball forward - Judd had accumulated several more possessions.

Matt Suckling launched one of his one step 50m missile kicks to add another, but Carlton equalised through a sequence of free kicks: first Hodge was penalised for ‘in the back’ (and not being Chris Judd), while Bryce Gibbs was ‘held’ or ‘slightly caressed’ as it would be described in an erotic novel. 

From this point on, however, the Hawks took over. A goal to Liam Shiels, after slick work by the Poo, was followed by two more from dodgy free kicks. The first was a free to Carlton which they completely botched, allowing Rioli to snap a brilliant goal, and the second was to David Hale for a high tackle, which considering he was doubled over at the time seemed a little fortuitous.

Still a 25 point lead at quarter time was sufficient excuse for a trip to the Hugh Trumble bar, or at least to move away from the Blues fans Chan-Tha and I had inadvertently found ourselves sitting behind. They’d been wearing no form of club insignia when we took our seats, so we’d thought nothing of it. As Chan-Tha pointed out, however, that should have been the first sign they were supporting Carlton; people ashamed to flaunt their allegiance could only be Blues fans anticipating another embarrassing loss. 

We’d been joined by our friend Pete as well as Rachel and her partner, also Pete, so by the time we emerged from the Trumble, the complexion of the game had changed and we were glad not to be sitting near Carlton fans.

A stunning run and dribble goal from Cyril, and an exhilarating passage of play that ended with Breust snapping a goal were lone highlights of a quarter that otherwise seemed to consist of Carlton’s Mitch Robinson and Levi Casboult pulling down towering marks and kicking long goals. Most disconcertingly, Levi Casboult, who despite being a good mark, had previously demonstrated that his kicking was about as accurate as a Mayan doomsday prediction, was suddenly directing his kicks post-high through the middle. More evidence, if it were needed, that the full moon affects the flight of the Sherrin, for surely on any other night he would have missed all or most of these shots.

It was only a Tim O’Brien set shot towards the end of the quarter that kept our lead at 18 points at half-time.

If the second quarter was disconcerting, the third was diabolical. Casboult kicked his fourth within a minute of the restart, Cyril was reported for elbowing Zach Toohey in the head (the fact that he missed Toohey entirely and cleaned up Puopolo didn’t seem to come into it), Rough had a shot that missed everything and Duryea dropped a simple chest mark that led to another Carlton attack. The free kick count was also blowing out, now 14- 8 in Carlton’s favour, highlighting the value of Carlton’s week-long dummy spit in the media. When Daisy Thomas snapped a goal, the scores were suddenly level.

Rachel, who early in the match had noted my nervous habit of chewing on my scarf, was becoming fearful that I might actually wolf it down.

When Jarrad Waite goaled at the 21-minute mark, Carlton led by 7 points and if this wasn’t bad enough, Matthew Watson marked directly in front only moments later. It was looking dire. Happily, Watson missed, and it may have been this let off, or some celestial phenomenon, or just that our players loathed the gloating Carlton crowd as much as we did, but something sparked Hawthorn and we started to work the ball forward.

Two of our best players for the evening, Puopolo and Sewell combined to peg one back for us, and soon after this, another stoppage saw Lewis play third man up in the ruck and tap it towards Smith who gathered on the boundary and guided through an unlikely goal from the boundary. We were back in front at the final break, but only just.

Ole Ole

Like crime novels, football matches have their own shape, certain tropes and patterns recognisable to aficionados that hint at the ultimate denouement. In this sense teams often finish matches the way they begin, regardless of any surprising plot twists or red herrings that may have muddied the storyline along the way. And the ending that ultimately transpires is exactly what you envisaged on about page 50, or ¼ time in this instance.

Such was the case in this match. Having kicked the final two goals in the third quarter, we slotted the first two in the final quarter - first to Hill who roved the crumbs from a spoiled Roughead mark, and then to Ceglar who was pushed in the back by Casboult at a ruck contest. 

Carlton still had the odd flurry, but further goals to new boy Ben Ross, who ran in after accepting a handball from Birchall, Roughead who slid one through on his right boot, and a beautiful team goal that began with Carlton being dispossessed in the centre by Isaac Smith, who handballed to Hodge who passed to Ceglar, who handballed to Rough who passed to Cyril in the goal square by himself. Just gorgeous.

Another fine set shot by Roughead for his third and the Hawks had added 6 goals to 2 in the final quarter to mirror the first quarter and run out convincing winners by 28 points. That’s one win down for the weekend – just the Socceroos against Chile and England against Italy to go.

Hawthorn’s best players on the night were Brad Sewell, Cyril Rioli, Grant Birchall and Luke Hodge, players who are not unaccustomed to this position. Brad Hill and Paul Puopolo also played well, and we are coming to expect that weekly, but plaudits must also go to the less heralded players such as Gus Llitherland, Matt Spangher, Jon Ceglar and Kyle Cheney who all played with determination and did their fill-in jobs admirably.

Final scores: Hawthorn 18 10 118 d Carlton 13 12 90

Attendance: 49,615

Ladder position: 2nd

What we learned: Even Brazil, home of the Mardi-Gras, can’t put on a decent pre-match show. The opening ceremony for Brazil’s World Cup was every bit as underwhelming as any Grand Final pre-match ‘entertainment’. The broccoli on stilts was one thing – or were they the trees from H.R. Puff ‘n Stuff? – but Pit Bull, J-Lo and the other chick in blue were arguably worse than Angry Anderson singing ‘We Won’t Be Beaten’ from the Batmobile in 1991, or Meatloaf singing whatever it was he was ‘singing’ in 2011.

What we already knew: Carlton’s two previous weeks had resulted in close losses to Brisbane and Geelong respectively, both involving controversial umpiring decisions (in their minds at least). Such was their outrage they had a much-publicised meeting with umpires boss, Wayne Campbell. Predictably, as the match unfolded, Carlton was the beneficiaries of every line-ball decision and several that were just plain wrong.  It just reinforced that if you whine and moan long enough and loud enough, you can get your way.

What we don’t quite understand: This was Carlton’s home match against Hawthorn, at Hawthorn’s home ground.

On Sunday Collingwood played a home match against the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium – the Western Bulldogs’ home ground.  Meanwhile, Essendon played Melbourne at the MCG – Melbourne’s home ground. Why wouldn’t you schedule Collingwood to play a their home match at their home ground – the MCG, and Essendon to play their home match at their home ground – Etihad?

Elsewhere: Buddy Franklin was the star for Sydney in their win over top team Port Adelaide – a victory for the tribunal given that Buddy shouldn’t have been playing.

Essendon players were finally served with ‘show cause’ notices from ASADA last week, but after their insipid loss to lowly Melbourne, it would be no surprise if Essendon fans served their own ‘show spine’ notices on the players.

Essendon has predictably launched immediate legal action – not over the allegations of course, but the process. Essendon is happy to make the AFL waste their money on legal action, which of course is money that could be used to improve the game or support other clubs, including grass roots football teams, rather than simply respond to the charges. What are they afraid of?