Round 19 – Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs

Sunday 3 August 2014, Aurora Stadium

Hawthorn and the bulldogs - hostility-free footy

I’m not normally a fan of the Sunday twilight fixture, but after an early start to the day to watch junior soccer (in which incidentally, my son Declan kicked a cracker of a goal), then a tennis match with my other son Oscar, followed by a kick of his new brand new Match Day Sherrin (do you realise how hard those things are to mark - I’ve got new respect for North Melbourne’s Lindsay Thomas - no wonder he dives rather than trying to take the mark - it hurts) then lugging fencing and other assorted debris to the nature strip for the local council’s hard rubbish collection, there was no better way to take in the Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs match than on the couch with the ducted heating turned to a toasty 20 degrees, slippers on my feet and a Little Creatures Bright Ale in hand. And I particularly love games that are eminently winnable.

In truth it’s hard to know how to respond to this match against the Bulldogs. Hawthorn won by 10 goals, as most people expected they would, and even though the Hawks kicked 4 goals in the opening 10 minutes and the Dogs only managed 6 for the entire match, there was a lengthy period midway through the third quarter when Hawks fans were watching on nervously.

The Dogs were keeping things tight and for large parts of the match were matching Hawthorn.  If not for inaccuracy in front of goal, they might even have hit the front. But inevitably, Breust and Gunston conjured quick goals midway through the third quarter to give us some breathing space and from there we gradually edged away to a comfortable victory.

Well comfy for me that is, reclining on the couch in my slippers. A onesie would have been good. It looked a bit chilly in Launceston to be honest and the Dogs were not going down easily. In fact if you take out the 4.2 Hawthorn kicked in the first 10 minutes ad the 5.3 they kicked in the final 15 minutes, you’re left with a scoreline through the bulk of the match that reads Hawthorn 7.6 to the Dogs 6.8, so it wasn’t as unequivocally emphatic as the final score suggests.

Having said that, the match followed a fairly typical Launceston template with the Hawks finishing strongly after a tight struggle. Jarryd Roughead was excellent with 6 goals, Luke Breust and the Poo were lively, Grant Birchall, Shaun Burgoyne, Matt Spangher and Luke Hodge kept things steady and Will Langford played an excellent game. A key player early was Taylor Duryea, who set up Rough’s first two goals and in between kicked a nice goal himself.

The Dogs - a footy fan’s (second) best friend

This match falls on a weekend when ancient enmities are playing out across the world. In Scotland the Commonwealth Games are winding up and Australia is falling behind old enemy England on the medal table; in rugby union an Australian team (the Waratahs) take on a New Zealand team (the Crusaders) in the super rugby final, across the western world we commemorate the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of World War 1, while in the Middle East Israel and Hamas keep up a battle that shows every sign of lasting 100 years. 

In such company, this match is an anomaly - although the Hawks and the Bulldogs joined the league in the same year, 1925, and faced off in the 1961 Grand Final when Hawthorn won its first premiership, we are hardly what you’d call traditional rivals. In fact there is very little enmity at all. Most footy fans quite like the Bulldogs, even nominate them as their second favourite team - probably because they’ve rarely threatened anyone, let alone enjoyed a period of dominance. Most footy fans admire Adam Cooney and Ryan Griffin as players, agree that Liberatore will be good and hope that McCarthy can turn them around. And whatever you think of Robert Murphy’s value to the team, his column in The Age makes for more interesting reading than whether Nat Fyfe should be eligible for the Brownlow or what role James Hird should play at Essendon.

If anything, most footy fans’ attitude towards the Dogs is a tad condescending - we can wish them well purely because we know they’ll never amount to anything.

I even quite liked their banner, which read: “The Only Good Hawk was Dougie” a reference to their former champion, Doug Hawkins, known as ‘Hawk’ or more commonly, the dickhead from the Footy Show. As sledging goes, the barb was hardly a rocket into Israel, however, at least it was in good humour and accompanied by a large cartoon bulldog in studded collar. It’s a catch-22 for the Dogs - they’ll never be any good until people have a reason to hate them, and people will never really hate them until they’re good.

So the main points of interest in this clash were whether Hawthorn could regain top spot on the ladder - a 3-4 goal victory would be enough - why Sam Mitchell and Isaac Smith were late withdrawals from the team - the Hawks always manage at least one late withdrawal; it’s now generally understood that our selected side is purely provisional, and whether Bob Murphy would get a column out of it. 

Natural order

In the end, natural order has been restored, at least momentarily, with the Hawks back on top of the AFL ladder and also, somewhat fittingly, the sun shining for the first time in several weeks. As for restoring peace to the Middle East, even Hawthorn’s powers can’t work that sort of miracle.

Next week we play Melbourne in what, on paper at least, is our final stress-free game of the season before a run of awkward games against Fremantle in Perth, Geelong and Collingwood to lead into the Finals. Melbourne is currently undergoing one of its periodic crises so perhaps they’ll be a tougher opponent than we think, but even so, we should be able to stay on top and keep the sun shining for another week.

Final scores: Hawthorn 16 11 107 d Western Bulldogs 6 9 45

Ladder position: 1^st

Attendance: 14,187