Round 17 - Adelaide v Hawthorn

Friday 11 July 2014, Adelaide Oval

The City of Churches – a Place to Worship Hawthorn

A loss to North the previous week, Brian Lake out suspended, Brad Hill, Gibbo and Cyril still out injured a trip to Adelaide to face a resurgent Crows outfit and what had seemed like an innocuous mid-season fixture was suddenly assuming ominous proportions. I wasn’t able to watch the entire match live because I had tickets to a gig - and the name of the band, Big Scary, began to take on menacing properties.

Rihanna acknowleges Hawthorn's victory

In truth, their music is anything but big or scary, more fey and gentle, but my presentiments were confirmed when James Podsiadly kicked the opening goal of the game, a long, curling kick from the boundary line. Pods plays one or two good games a season, usually against Hawthorn, so one minute in and things were already looking grim.

Prior to going to the gig, I joined Chan-Tha for the first quarter at The Sporting Globe in Richmond. The Sporting Globe is not the pink Saturdayafternoon newspaper of my childhood, but a franchise of pubs that cater to sporting enthusiasts. There are large screens at every conceivable vantage point showing every conceivable live sporting contest underway; football, cricket, rugby; there was even volleyball on one of the screens. There is a giant screen on level 2 and the booths all have private screens that you can tune to any event you like. The Globe did a roaring trade during the World Cup and the Monday following this match Hawthorn identities Brent Guerra and Kyle Cheney would be spotted at 5am taking in the Germany v Argentina match. Not Gibbo though; he was seen at Bulla - good to know his rehab program involves harmless activities like snowboarding - what could possibly go wrong?

But back to the screens showing the Hawks game, and former Crow, Jack Gunston, helped swing things Hawthorn’s way with three quick goals; the first from a snap, the second from a towering hanger, and the third from a lead up mark and set shot. As Isaac Smith ran into an open goal it was looking like my fears had been unfounded - until he dribbled it into the post that is. Rough then missed a set shot and moments later Gunston broke free goal-side of his man with the ball in front of him, but instead of taking the ball and slamming through his fourth for the quarter, he fumbled, stumbled and fell, and swung his boot at the errant Sherrin, but with such little force that it barely wobbled over the line for a behind.

The Hawks were 4.3 but should have been 7.0. Cue two quick Adelaide goals in the final couple of minutes of the quarter. One of these goals originated in a free kick to the Crows after Sam Mitchell had been punched in the throat. The blow made him drop the ball, for which he was duly penalised, perhaps correctly, but only if you overlook the fact that if you’re punched in the oesophagus - and you are forced gasp for breath on your hands and knees, then it could be deemed to have been just a little high. Particularly in the week following the public hounding of Brian Lake for ‘choking’ Drew Petrie, for which he received less favourable press than Rolf Harris. Lake gets 4 weeks; Adelaide get a free kick. No wonder visitors to Australia sometimes find it hard to understand our game.

But let’s not boo the umpires for every little thing; now ain’t the time for your jeers.

A bit scary

At quarter time I took off and went to the gig which was at Ormond Hall in Prahran - a well-preserved art deco hall, like you might find in Adelaide - and followed the rest of the match via the Footy Live App. I couldn’t bear to keep it on the whole time so just checked in every 5 or 10 minutes, each time hoping that the Hawks had established a formidable enough lead that I could relax and enjoy the gig. 

From what I could tell, the Hawks maintained a slight edge all night, but never enough that I could  completely lose myself in Big Scary’s indie stylings. Instead, their quiet, melodic tunes ran counterpoint to my increasingly edgy mood as I watched numbers change on the screen. One of the highlights of the show was a song called ‘Long Worry’, the title of which pretty much summed up  the match for me. Against a gentle, babbling keyboard refrain and a simple beat, Tom Iansek opens the song by singing: “I am worn, frayed and torn, an agent of love forlorn”  which exactly captures the experience of following a football match via App updates. Happily I was going to be able to watch the game when I returned home.

The second quarter was very even: a couple of goals to Jonathan Simpkin helped the Hawks maintain a slight advantage, and despite Mitchell playing a brilliant game - his smother set up Simpkin’s first goal - there were worrying signs, most notably when Hodge was run down by Podsiadly! Also, two of Adelaide’s goals were manufactured by umpiring errors: first Eddie Betts, playing his 200^th game, snapped a goal, but only because Douglas went unpenalised for incorrect disposal after he simply dropped the ball when tackled. Even more alarmingly, Podsiadly put the Crows in front after being awarded a free kick in front of goal for, well, who could possibly say.

But let’s not boo the umpires for every little thing; now ain’t the time for your jeers.

Happily a brilliant Sam Mitchell handball to Isaac Smith set up a goal for Ben McEvoy, followed quickly by Luke Breust stealing the ball to kick another and restore our lead for half-time.

There’s a ringing in Ray’s ears…but it’s not the siren!

At some point during the third quarter while I was watching Big Scary, I checked the app and was horrified to see that Adelaide had hit the front - 70 to 64. I texted Chan-Tha to see what was going on and whether Rough had had a touch yet, and she texted back “Who?” Without being able to see the game, I wasn’t able to sense the state of play, but I was certainly beginning to fret. The last thing we wanted was Adelaide roaring home to the Riverbank Stand end in the final quarter with all the momentum and the crowd behind them. I slumped back in my seat as Big Scary launched into ‘Gladiator’, one of their better known songs, and was able to identify with its refrain, “I can feel it slipping.” I decided not to check the app again for several minutes - somehow I thought this might help.

And perhaps it did, because when I eventually watched the game back, it was from that very moment that Hawthorn took control of the match. From the very next bounce Hodge kicked forward to Gunston who ran onto it and kicked a glorious snap goal around his body in one fluid movement to put us back in front.  From the next bounce the ball went directly to Gunston again who trapped it on the half volley and fired a quick handball to Luke Breust who was running past. The resulting goal not only put us 7 points in front, but also equaled Sydney’s Tony Lockett’s record of 29 goals in succession without a behind, an ongoing saga that has exercised commentators to almost the same degree as those counting numbers in the senate for the repeal of the carbon tax. From that point the ball remained trapped in our forward line and although our pushing and prodding only brought about three behinds, Adelaide simply couldn’t clear it. Eventually however, Taylor Duryea kicked a beautiful long goal from 50 to give us a 15 point lead.

Another behind to Langford before Breust gathered the ball near the boundary line; he broke one, then two tackles and was running around to take a snap on goal when umpire Ray Chamberlain blew his whistle and stopped play! Had Breust run out of play? Had someone been a hit behind play? Had Clive Palmer called a press conference? No, apparently Ray heard the siren in his ear-piece – even though it hadn’t actually blown – and being a modern man of the world, he preferred to trust this virtual siren rather than the actual siren, which, had he thought about it, he might have realised wasn’t actually sounding at the time. That Ray blows his whistle with a kind of Tourettes instinct is well known, but this was ridiculous. We now know he also hears voices, or at least has a nasty ringing his ear. There was still 4 seconds on the clock and Breust had the ball 10 metres out. Upon realising his mistake Ray decided to throw the ball up - so in effect he took the ball away from Hawthorn in a goal scoring position and took it to a neutral position. How is that fair? Of course the second he threw the ball in the air the siren promptly sounded. Ray Chamberlain had quite brazenly cost Hawthorn a goal in a close match.

Now you may boo the umpires, now is the time for your jeers!

Most people have assumed that Ray simply made a mistake, not unreasonably perhaps, given his long and well-documented history of onfield blunders. But is it just possible that Ray had an ulterior motive for stopping play at that precise moment? I would never be the sort of person to point the finger of blame or hint at improper practices simply on the grounds that it disadvantaged Hawthorn, but given it was Breust who had the ball in his hands, and that he was about to kick a record breaking goal, is it worth a simple check to see if Ray is in any way associated with Tony Lockett? Where others might posit conspiracy theories or betting scandals, however, I argue that this is just another example of the AFL’s Sydney bias, ensuring that one of their records is not broken. Eddie, are you with me?

The final quarter began with continued dominance by Hawthorn, keeping the ball in our forward line for the first six minutes. The problem was that we added 4 straight behinds, including a miss from Breust and one from Langford from the goal square. Eleven straight scoring shots for Hawthorn netted just 3.8, so when Adelaide’s Smith kicked a long goal and Patrick Dangerfield dragged down Mitchell to win a free kick within scoring distance, it looked like we might pay for our profligacy. 

Happily Dangerfield missed and when Breust marked on the line to score, and Ceglar ran into an open goal, the Hawks held a 27 point lead with just 7.5 minutes to play. Even though Adelaide kicked the final 2.3 for the match, the Hawks were cruising for the final few minutes and the city of churches soon resounded with hymn number 1, “We’re a happy team at Hawthorn”

Final scores: Hawthorn 15 14 104 d Adelaide 14 8 92

Attendance: 50,321

Ladder position – 3^rd

What we learned: The notion of what constitutes an outrage in football seems to have undergone a transformation. On Friday night in a close match the umpire stopped the game just as a team was about to take a shot on goal because he ‘thought’ he heard the siren. In fact he heard his own virtual siren. Outrageous right? A travesty? A sham? The sort of thing that should have had all football journalists frothing at their keyboards, affixing the suffix ‘gate’ to some convenient word – ‘chamberlaingate’ or ‘raygate’ (we’d already had ‘sirengate’ earlier in the season) – and calling for immediate changes, demanding answers and even putting aside the topic of Mick Malthouse’s grumpiness for a moment.

And while the journos were outraged and shocked, and there was earnest editorialising and calls for sanctions, the object of their ire was not Ray Chamberlain, umpires boss Wayne Campbell or even the timekeeper at Adelaide Oval, but Brian Taylor. On Saturday night Channel 7 commentator Brian Taylor called Geelong defender Harry Taylor a “big poofter” in reference to s silly wave he gave while being chaired off the ground.  The football world erupted in condemnation and calls for counselling and sanctions – the works.

Okay, Brian Taylor’s remark, while meant as a throwaway quip, was ill advised and worse, not funny, but surely the biggest outrage of the weekend was Ray’s phantom siren! Was I the only one affronted by this?  Why was everyone focusing on BT’s crude gag rather than Ray’s cruel gaff?

What we already knew: Hawthorn had many great players on the night: Matt Spangher, Jordan Lewis, Luke Hodge, Jack Gunston, to name just a few, but none were better than Sam Mitchell. He smothered and tackled and every kick or handball set up another player in a better position. Playing just his second game back from injury, Mitchell was marvellus and to any objective viewer, clearly best on ground. No surprise then that Channel 7 awarded their best on ground prize to Patrick Dangerfield simply the basis of possession count. Having spent the half time break talking about how Dangerfield had accumulated possessions without really influencing the game, they then ignored their own analysis and just looked at the numbers. With all the back tracking and contradictions it was like listening to Clive Palmer talk about climate change.