Round 16 - North Melbourne v Hawthorn

Etihad Stadium, Friday 4 July 2014

Bottom of the Lake

The signs were bad even before the match started. First, no Cyril Rioli who injured his hamstring in last week’s match. Last season we defeated North Melbourne twice, but only because on each occasion Cyril took matters into his own hands to bring us victory.  

Also, coach Clarko was back; on the face of it a good thing, but on closer examination perhaps it wasn’t. Had he been out of the game too long? Would his message seem stale to the players after a burst of Bolts’ enthusiasm? Was Clarko even healthy enough to coach?

Then on the night it got even worse. Brad Hill somehow injured his knee in the warm-up – how is that even possible? Hill has gradually developed into one of our most important players – a point corroborated by Nathan Buckley who tagged him two weeks previous. Plus, just minutes into the match Brad Sewell injured his hamstring and we were playing with one man short for the majority of the match. Two players out injured before the match was even 15 minutes old.

All of this was bad, but the most ominous sign was that North had lost the previous week to the lowly Brisbane Lions. North are nothing if not changeable, exhibiting a sort of football split personality, or dissociative identity disorder as footy purists call it. They alternate between a kind and passive Dr Jekyll persona easily swept aside by a weak opposition and a marauding, evil Mr Hyde who terrorises even the most powerful.  The season form line suggested that after their Jekyllesque poor performance last week, they’d transform into Mr Hyde this week.

On the other hand, Sam Mitchell was back for Hawthorn, but we couldn’t expect him to dominate after eight weeks out of the game.

Bad Beginnings

I was there with Oscar and a friend, John, the father of one of Oscar’s football teammates. John was sitting with us because the rest of his family support North and he wanted to sit with people who'd be yelling "BALL!" in synch with him. We were sitting in the front row of the level three, directly above the interchange bench. An early sign that Hawthorn weren’t quite with it was that with the ball about to be bounced, the bench was still trying to work out whether Taylor Duryea or Matthew Suckling should start.  

As it turned out it didn’t really matter because we barely had a possession for the first five minutes. And when we did get the ball, uncharacteristic sloppiness set in. Kicks and handballs missed targets, tackles didn’t stick, except on our players, and we seemed hurried and hesitant.

Hill was proving a big loss. His pace allows Hawthorn to use him as a key link player, particularly in counter attacks, and we were missing his run in this match. At the risk of being corny, it’s fair to say that without Hill we plateaued, and if I may be permitted a new verb, even valleyed.

We got back on track towards the end of the first quarter and evened things out in the second. Gunston was playing well and kicking accurately, but Luke Breust seemed unwilling to have a shot unless he could be certain of kicking the goal. Either he was conscious of his impending record for most goals kicked without a behind – he came into the match on 26; the record is held by Tony Lockett with 29 – or he is a consummate team man always trying to give it to someone in a better position.  

We went in at half time just six points behind, which given North’s far superior play, was something of a miracle.

Life of Brian

Brian Lake prepares to lay a tackle

We lost the match in a 10-minute spell in the third quarter when North piled on seven goals, thanks in no small part to Hawthorn turnovers and ill discipline. Sure the umpires contributed with an unbroken string of free kicks to North, but most of them were there, and really, we were second to the ball, or if first, mishandling it.

The main architect of our undoing was Brian Lake. Hawthorn was just looking like it might be getting control of the game; we’d kicked our second goal for the quarter to get in front when North went forward and Drew Petrie marked about 60 metres out, whereupon Lake knocked the ball from his grasp, giving away a 50 metre penalty and a certain goal. A scuffle started that soon escalated into a fight in which Brian Lake was seen kneeling over Drew Petrie trying to choke him.

After the match Alastair Clarkson condemned Lake’s actions (we presume he was referring to the choking incident; not just the 50 metre penalty). Both Luke Hodge and Jordan Lewis endorsed Clarko’s condemnation the next day. And they were right to do so. You can’t go around choking Drew Petrie, it’s just not acceptable; Brent Harvey fair enough, but not Drew Petrie.

You can see how such an incident might come about though. One imagines Brian was simply pointing out to Drew that North were a bunch of chokers who can give up any lead. Perhaps he thought Drew was a little slow on the uptake so he simply gave a physical demonstration in support of his argument. In any case, it is no surprise that it was The Stranglers who sang the immortal lines, "There's never a frown with golden brown" though Brian might be frowning later in the week. 

One presumes Lake will be suspended given the amount of media coverage the incident received and the moral panic whipped up by the casual commentary on the gameg. Dr Peter Larkins was chief among them in projecting the worst possible outcome for any injury Petrie might have sustained. He was deeply concerned that Petrie might actually be asphyxiated. I reckon if it got to that point even Brian Lake would work out that he needed to let go. If I were a hypochondriac seeking days off work I’d make Dr Larkins my GP because he’d always be ready to see the worst and sign a certificate. In football, only Dr Edelstein rivals Larkins as a media loving medico.

Monday morning the Herald-Sun’s carried a front page headline in large font that read ‘FIEND ALERT’ and I thought to myself, ‘oh come on, it wasn’t that bad’ until a closer reading revealed that the story was about a sex offender on the loose, and not Brian Lake. Though given the hysteria around the case, I wouldn't have been surprised if they had something worse in store for Brian.  

Happily Drew Petrie himself was professing no great concern over the incident.  

Not so North coach Brad Scott of course who was "flabbergasted" when Petrie was also asked to appear at the Tribunal for his face gouge. I don't necessarily disagree with Brad Scott on this occasion - Petrie appeared to be trying to protect himself, although he is face grab seemed to preface Lake's choker hold - but Scott's default mood is to be 'flabbergasted'. He's flabbergasted before the opposition has even turned up. 

In any case, this was just one in a series of goals that North scored in a short burst, including another to Petrie who took a big grab on the goal line when no Hawthorn player thought to punch it through. Hodge gave away free kicks, Suckling continually tried to break tackles, and couldn’t - it was a disaster. It would be more fun to watch Brad Scott doing stand-up.

During the warm up I’d spotted no. 50 for North, Ben Brown, who was tall and ungainly, to say nothing of his shocking perm. A generous estimation of his ability might be that he is unpolished or unreconstructed, though most objective observers would simply dismiss him as crap. Watching him galumph about in the warm up I thought, if he kicks one, we’re in trouble. When he slotted his second as part of this little burst I knew the match was gone.

As it turned out we battled it out manfully and although we broached striking distance, we never quite struck. Crucial mistakes at key moments cost us. In the end North had 105 more possessions than us, which is so many you could almost accuse them of being selfish. This was probably our worst performance since we played Richmond in 2012, yet we still only lost by 20 points. But it was more than just the game we lost – with Port and Sydney on equal wins, it would also mean losing top spot.

Lake Placid

Lake Less Placid

The Three Stooges

When we arrived at the game, we took seats in the front row in the general admission area on level 3 – a section populated largely by Hawthorn supporters but there were a few North fans around us. The three men sitting directly behind us were probably in their late 50s, all wearing Hawks scarves and caps, and seemed genial enough. Until the match started that is.

Looking over the game from a high vantage, they were like the two old blokes on The Muppets who heckle from the balcony, except with one more. In any given match there are approximately 250 contests – moments where players from both teams come together to compete for the ball – and I’d say that for almost every one of them, this trio not only located an infringement against Hawthorn of one sort or another, but gave loud vocal testament to it – right in our ears. They maligned North players, vilified the umpires and on the rare occasion a North fan made any sort of comment in support of their team or to gently denigrate Hawthorn, they belittled and disparaged them loudly and publicly.

Okay, I thought one or two decisions went against us unfairly, but as many went for us, perhaps equally unfairly from North’s perspective. We’ve all had our moments at the football but these blokes were relentless – you wonder what they were like in the 90s or the early part of this century when Hawthorn was truly crap.

Given their age – late 50s – if they’ve been going to the football since they were very young, they’d have possibly seen all 11 Hawthorn premierships, which works out at one every five years – Hawks fans of this vintage don’t really have a lot to bemoan.

I will grant that they were reasonably amusing with respect to North coach Brad Scott and his arm waving pantomime of utter disbelief whenever North was penalised, regardless of how blatant the indiscretion. Scott must be in the running to be the biggest whinger in the game, perhaps rivalled only by his brother Chris (I wonder who was first born?) The irony is of course that for all their mocking of Brad Scott, his sense of persecution doesn’t run nearly as deep as that felt by these three blokes.

Final scores: North Melbourne 16 12 108  d  Hawthorn 13 10 88

Attendance: 35,025

Ladder position: 2nd

What we learned: Say what you like about Brian Lake, he may have shown some ill-discipline, made an error of judgement or two, but at least he wasn’t caught ‘bubbling’ like NRL player Todd Carney. ‘Bubbling’ is the act of urinating upwards in an arc so that you can catch it in your own mouth. It makes you wonder if the name ‘Carn(e)y is less a name than it is a description. 

We also learned that the ex-Hawthorn curse has struck Clinton Young again. It is well-known that once a player leaves Hawthorn, their powers simply evaporate – Jonathan Hay, Nathan Thompson, Mark Williams, Trent Croad (he got good again when he returned), Campbell Brown, Dermott Brereton and now Clinton Young are testament to this phenomenon. Okay, perhaps the theory doesn’t stack up when you factor in Buddy or Josh Kennedy, but with Collingwood trailing Gold Coast by less than a goal on Saturday night, and with less than two minutes remaining, a Collingwood player squared the ball to Clinton Young who was standing by himself about 30 metres from goal directly in front. The ball went directly to him, and all he had to do was go back and kick a straight-forward goal, except that he dropped the mark. Although he recovered to gain possession, the ensuing chain of hurried disposals brought only a behind, and Collingwood lost by 5 points.

What we already knew: Brian Lake was recruited to Hawthorn as a big-bodied defender to play on the ‘monster’ forwards of the opposition. In getting Brian to the club, we also knew we were getting someone who every now and again loses his way, his form, his temper, or all three. We appear to have reached that moment, but we should consider that Brian won us a Grand Final last year and lost us a home and away match – on balance we’re still well ahead.

What disconcerts us: It’s great that Clarko is well again and back at the helm. What bothers us, however, is that either side of Bolts’ five game winning streak, Clarko has now coached us to three straight losses – Sydney in round 8, Port Adelaide in round 10 and North Melbourne in round 16 – (round 9 was a bye). It's too early to say Clarko's gotta go - he is after all, the reigning premiership coach and we're not Richmond - or that he's lost the players, but with Adelaide looming next week, he returns to the very place he was struck down last time...I'm confident on Clarko can overcome.