Giant Killers
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| Not matt Spangher, or Conchita |
If I’m reading the markets correctly, at sporstbet.com you can get odds of 501 to 1 on Jesus Christ returning before 28 September 2015 (which interestingly is two days after the Grand Final), so long as you can prove it is indeed Jesus who has returned. And showing a photo of Matt Spangher presumably won’t cut it.
Setting aside that this is the type of thing on which you might bet money, rather than just your conviction, these odds are only marginally more generous than those offered for GWS to defeat Hawthorn at the MCG on Sunday, notwithstanding Hawthorn’s growing injury list and senior coach Alastair Clarkson’s sudden hospitalisation. They are sill somewhat shorter odds than those on offer for the Socceroos to win the World Cup, which stand at 751 to 1. This means that people believe there is more likelihood of Jesus returning in the next 15 months than there is of Australia winning the World Cup. I’d perhaps go further and say that Australia’s only chance of winning the World Cup is if Jesus does return and through some complex ancestral mix-up, perhaps involving forged papers, is eligible to represent Australia. Unlikely given the current government’s rigid stance on immigration from the Middle East.
Perhaps the confidence about Jesus returning is base don the Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio.
The World Cup is still over a week away, however, and we know Jesus won’t return because if there was a God, Hawthorn wouldn’t be suffering such a horrendous run with injuries. Indeed before the match Hawthorn lost three more players: Ben McEvoy after an injury suffered in the loss to Port Adelaide, and Ben Stratton and Jordan Lewis mysteriously during the week. That makes Mitchell, Rioli, Gibson, Lake, Lewis, Stratton, and McEvoy (not including Whitecross and Anderson who both played finals last season) all missing. Workcover Victoria has signalled that it is investigating Essendon over its supplements program, but I think they should get down to Hawthorn and check out what is going on down there with respect to workplace safety. The Australian troops in East Timor have a lower casualty rate. Even the retail assistant I spoke to at The Hawks shop when I called to order my indigenous jumper sounded like she was coming down with a cold.
Even so, Luke Hodge, Jarryd Roughead and Brad Sewell were back; Jack Gunston, Luke Breust, Isaac Smith, Brad Hill and Shaun Burgoyne were all playing, so there was sufficient talent to suggest that the Hawks were a safer bet than the second coming.
And when Gunston slotted a goal in the first minute anyone with $100 on the Hawks at odds of $1.01 probably felt justified in dreaming about how to spend their $1 worth of winnings. At that point Hawthorn led 1.1.7 to zero, however, from that moment on we were unable to extend it. In fact from that moment both teams scored exactly the same. We led by as much as 13 points at one stage, but never more, and even trailed for extended periods of the game.
There were moments when you looked in the centre bounce and our combination involving Ceglar, Langford, Hallahan and were less experienced than their Giants counterparts. Even so, nothing could excuse the mis-kicks and missed marks, the slow ball movement and sloppy handballs - not even the conditions, slippery and difficult after a daylong downpour.
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| Our indigenous top - the best part of the day |
Chan-Tha and I were at the match, you might even have seen us if you were watching because there weren’t too many other people there, although we took refuge under cover or in the Hugh Trumble Bar. Fifteen solid hours of rain, freezing conditions and the start time of 4.40pm kept most right thinking people, or those with lives to be getting on with, at home. We were only there because after two interstate games either side of a bye, we hadn’t seen the Hawks win for a month, and we sensed victory against the struggling Giants.
Even a quarter time deficit of a goal didn’t necessarily dissuade us, for surely Hawthorn would turn it on and blitz them, or just gradually edge further ahead. The Giants were playing a counter-attacking game of packing the backline and then breaking when they took possession. They moved the ball quickly and accurately and with Hawthorn’s decimated defence, scored relatively easily. But this sort of game plan is rarely successful over four quarters, and certainly not against good teams like Hawthorn. Is it?
When the Hawks bagged the first couple of goals in the second quarter, (Sewell and Breust), it looked like things would finally get moving. After Devon Smith kicked another for the Giants, Hawthorn followed with two more quick goals - a big roost on the run from Gunston and an unlikely right foot snap from Smith. At last we thought, now we’re finally getting it together. But the Giants kicked another and we went in at half time just 11 points in front.
By half way through the third quarter it was becoming clear that we were not going to cruise to victory as easily we imagined, and when Rhys Palmer kicked a goal to put the Giants in front 22 minutes in, the notion that we might actually lose began to surface. Then they kicked another!
It was a very frustrating match to watch; like reading an inferior novel by a favourite author - you keep thinking that surely it will pick up soon, and when it doesn’t, you not only find faults that you might have overlooked in a superior work, but you notice how long it is dragging on and you begin to resent the time you’re wasting by reading it – a salient point in a game where each quarter ran well over 30 minutes, despite a relatively low number of goals and virtually no time wasted through injury.
Our thoughts were obviously were with Clarko, wondering whether he was watching from hospital and suffering some sort of relapse, or more likely, ripping the drips out of his arm, detaching himself from various monitors and rushing to the ground to address the team at the three quarter time break.
Happily Gunston and Smith both added goals to give the Hawks a one point lead at the final break, but the cheering in the stands was more an outpouring of relief than any celebration. As handballs were intercepted or kicks dropped short of their targets, the predominant crowd noise was that of 15,000 Hawks fans groaning, “just kick it” in exasperation. In our players’ defence, part of the problem might have been the new indigenous-themed jumper we were wearing for indigenous round. Not that there is anything wrong with the design - it is actually stylish - but it is predominantly brown, and in the dull gloaming on the first day of winter, perhaps they simply couldn’t see each other.
The final quarter, we hoped, would see our boys take over and settle our growing unease. And when Roughead bombed one through from 50 it looked like things might be set to turn. Moments later however, Patton outmarked several Hawks in the goal square to make the difference less than a goal.
A free kick to Smith, a good set shot from Gunston and a smattering of behinds either way saw the Hawks in front by 13 points as we hit time on - surely that would be enough. But no sooner had I allowed that thought to surface than GWS kicked another, goal, which was quickly followed by Patton taking another towering grab 20 metres out. This would make the difference just 1 point and the very real possibility of losing to the league’s easy beats was looming. Patton, perhaps sensing the chance, shanked his kick and missed. One more behind to Duryea took out the option of a draw and when the siren sounded, so did a muted rendition of, “We’re an anxious team at Hawthorn”
The second coming may be at reasonably long odds, but on the current form, it is clear to me that the return of Jesus is not nearly as important as the return of Mitchell, Rioli and above all, Alastair Clarkson.
Final scores: Hawthorn 14 10 94 d GWS 13 9 87
Attendance: 17,904
Ladder position: 2nd
What we learned: coaching a team of elite AFL footballers is more difficult than it appears. Hawthorn is a team of highly paid, highly drilled professional players who live and train in a hermetically sealed environment where their heart rate, diet, brain waves, emotional intelligence, skin folds, social media use, libido, white cell count, fitness and fatigue levels are monitored and assessed daily by a team of health, well-being and mindfulness specialists, life coaches and Zen consultants. So you’d think that all you have to do to bring about victory against one of the bottom teams is point them in the right direction and make sure they enter the playing field on time. Hawthorn caretaker coach, Brendan ‘Bolts’ Bolton, discovered however that just sitting next to Clarko in the coaches box and having a vague working knowledge of the game plan isn’t necessarily sufficient. Clarko brings a whole lot more to game day - namely fear and intimidation.
In the lead up to the match captain Luke Hodge had spoken of how much respect the playing group has for Bolts, but is respect enough? In times of difficulty, when the rolling zone or the cluster or running overlap play isn’t getting the required results, a good old fashioned spray from Clarko can help switch on the players’ focus and bring about the necessary turnaround. Clarko scares them into playing well because they live in fear of what might befall them if they don’t. Fear of failure is a powerful motivator; fear of Clarko is even stronger. We support and love ‘Bolts’, he seems like a good bloke, but it remains to be seen if he can add to his coaching repertoire the necessary level of menace that will get the boys ‘playing for him’ as they say.
What we already knew: It was only a matter of time before another player hit the headlines for a social media faux pas. Carlton has sacked young defender Josh Bootsma for what they’re calling ‘inappropriate use of social media’ in that he posted explicit photos on Snapchat. The idea of Bootsma posting explicit photos is indeed shocking, mainly because he looks like Napolean Dynamite, but the real issue here is that he was obviously stupid enough to admit to it. There’s an old saying in legal circles; “deny everything; even if they’ve got photos, deny it.” The beauty of Snapchat is that they don’t have photos because the app self-deletes them. So when Bootsma was asked if he’d posted these images, he should simply have said ‘No’.
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| Josh Bootsma - photo cropped for decency |
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