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.

  

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. 

Round 15 - Hawthorn v Gold Coast Suns

Aurora Stadium, Saturday 28 June 2014

Out on the wiley, windy moors

Kate Bush on the lead at Aurora

It’s quite plausible, given the bleak conditions in Launceston on the weekend, that the good people of that town knelt in prayer or pranced about in pagan entreaty to the gods to summon the sun. And it worked to the degree that even if the fiery orb in the sky remained concealed, at least its Gold Coast namesakes turned up.

Actually ‘bleak’ doesn’t begin to describe the grim and drab conditions that prevailed. I was watching on TV from chilly Melbourne, but even so, the charcoal skies, film of rain and a dispersed crowd of people hunched inward under their ponchos painted an instant picture of desolate gloom that made Melbourne’s 12 degrees Celsius seem positively balmy.  

If a player kicks high toward the goals to the left of screen at Aurora, you catch a glimpse of the hills surrounding Launceston. As Jarryd Roughead kicked our first for the afternoon, and the camera followed the ball in flight, it looked like Bronte country out there. You half expected to see Heathcliff trying to touch it on the line.

Luckily for the Suns they were wearing their high-vis orange and yellow outfit, so they could at least be seen. Even with the gold stripes, however, the Hawks blended into the gloaming. 

The conditions were tough for ball handling, and there was a prolonged period in the first quarter when players from both sides could do no more than push it along the ground. For more than two minutes not one player was able to handle the ball cleanly in a way that might count as a possession. Thankfully it eventually spilled out to Gary Ablett who was actually able to pick it up and kick it.

Every cloud has a brown and gold lining

Hawthorn dominated play in the first quarter, but inaccuracy meant that they only scored 1.5, whereas the Suns occasional forays forward had netted them 3.0. Happily Luke Breust kicked one at the end of the quarter to get us back within a point at the break.

The second quarter continued along in more or less the same pattern. Breust slid one through and Burgoyne goaled, but when Dixon kicked the Suns’ fifth straight goal, the scores were level on 30 (4.6 to 5.0). Even though the Hawks had most of the play, it was just beginning to look like this could become a close match. The scores were still level with 5 minutes left in the half when Hale got a handball out of the pack to Lewis who snuck one through. By the time the siren rang a few minutes later, Hodge had added another, Smith two more and Rioli kicked one off the ground, and the Hawks suddenly had a lead of 30 points.

The clouds still loomed thickly overhead, but at least we could see their brown and gold lining.

The third quarter began with Ceglar getting the tap out and by the time the Hawks worked the ball around the wing and the flank, Ceglar had run directly forward and was in the goal square in time to collect a handball from Burgoyne and kick it through. 

Hodge, Roughead and Birchall added further goals, making it nine unanswered goals for the Hawks, and the lead continued to mount, growing to 56 points. In a beautiful passage of play late in the third quarter, Hawthorn maintained possession on the wing with a succession of handballs in a keepings-off play, until eventually Burgoyne set Breust free and he ran in to kick his third for the match.  

The commentary team of Hamish McLachlan, Basil Zempalis and Scott Welsh prattled on good naturedly about Ablett’s ever growing possession count, toting up numbers like actuaries. At a certain point, however, regardless of how good a player he undoubtedly is (and I’m among those who think he rivals Leigh Matthews as the best ever), you have to wonder how much it really matters if his team is still 10 goals behind.  Then you have to consider how far behind they might be without him.

Are you ready to be heartbroken?

I’d seen Lloyd Cole play a show in Thornbury the previous night. Like Hawthorn, Lloyd’s heyday was in the 80s and although he played songs from his entire career, the songs the audience were most familiar with were those from that period and in particular, his debut album, Rattlesnakes. I sang along under my breath as he performed, little realising how prescient one of those songs would prove to be.

When the final quarter got underway Birchall kicked an early goal and Hodge another. I was snug in the warmth in Melbourne, the Hawks were cruising; it was all going so nicely…what could possibly go wrong? But of course in season 2014 the answer to that question has no shortage of possible outcomes. Once your coach has come down with a rare nerve disorder with a French name, anything is possible. For this week’s disaster, however, the footy gods, those capricious deities, reverted to one of their default punishments.

As I watched on contentedly, slippers on feet and beer in hand, Cyril chased a loose ball and slid to the ground as he pushed it forward, but the camera, like the commentators, followed the ball so we missed the main talking point to come out of the game – Cyril had injured his hamstring again. My thoughts turned to the previous evening when I’d been cheerily singing along with Lloyd the closing track from Rattlesnakes, “Are You ready to Be Heartbroken?”

What was curious is that the commentary team hadn’t picked up on Rioli's injury. They continued calling the action – such as it was – and didn’t mention Rioli for a good few minutes, until the screen showed vision of Cyril on the bench with a blanket over his lap eating lollies with ruck coach Damien Monkhurst. This seemed to surprise them and they conjectured if something had gone wrong, ultimately deciding that it was unlikely. A replay of the incident showed Cyril lying flat on his stomach after the ball had left the area, and presumably he’d been helped off the ground right in front of them and their boundary rider. Cyril being helped off by trainers and favouring one leg might have given them a clue as to what might have happened. How is it that they’d missed calling the one part of the match that actually mattered? Were they even at the ground? Perhaps they were calling the match from some warmer sanctuary, perhaps that Arcadia of the footy gods, the mythical Footy Central, or Basil’s man cave, with its masses of banked screens?

Meanwhile in an unhappy portent of what they might like without Rioli, the Hawks stopped and the Suns added the final four goals of the game to close the gap from 70 plus points to a mere 53 points. It still kept the Suns well and truly in the shade, but didn’t bode particularly well for the Hawks either.

Final scores: Hawthorn 17 14 116 d old Coast Suns 10 3 63

Attendance: 13,178

Ladder position: 1st

What we learned: After Port Adelaide lost to Adelaide, the Hawks found themselves on top of the ladder. Before we get too excited tough, we should remember that after North next week, we have to play Adelaide away in two weeks.

We also learned that senior coach Alastair Clarkson is likely to be back for the next match.  Great news. Not that we don’t love Bolts, we do, that’s why we’re glad Clarko’s back. Bolts is way too chirpy to be a full-time AFL coach. Open, honest, positive, veritably happy – a man with these qualities has no place coaching an AFL side. Five wins from five matches at the helm is an impressive record, but for his own sake he should quit now.  He just need look at the whingeing Scott twins or malcontent Malthouse to know what his future might be like if he continues down this murky road.

Contemplating the return of Clarko, Hamish McLachlan said that Hawthorn have been playing so well, even Clarko might have to return via Box Hill.

What we already knew: that Sunday night football was misguided.  Only 40,000 people turned up to watch Collingwood and Carlton the night following the Hawks v Suns clash; the lowest crowd to attend a match between these teams since Federation, or thereabouts. This timeslot can only have been chosen by people who a) get in for free, b) have access to a private (warm) box with dinner provided, c) don’t have children to consider, d) have Mondays off and e) don’t like Modern Family.

What we’re wondering: My knowledge of medical science is somewhat patchy, but in light of Cyril’s recurring hamstring injuries – and when we say recurring we mean constant – is it possible for him to have a hamstring transplant surgery in the same way that you can have a heart or kidney transplant? That is, take the healthy hamstring from someone and swap it with Cyril’s? Ideally a dead person, but if that’s not possible I’d be willing to sacrifice mine. I ‘d happily walk with a limp for the rest of my life if it meant that Cyril could play unhindered. It would be for the greater good of Hawthorn. After all, Cyril has more use for a healthy hamstring than me.

Okay, I realise I'm running a week behind, but I'll catch up this week, not that anyone will be in a hurry to read about the North game.