Round 1 - Hawthorn v Brisbane

Hawthorn - Forever in Fashion

Hawthorn v Brisbane Lions
Aurora Stadium - Saturday 22 March 2014

The 2014 AFL season dawned in a very literal sense for me. I was happily ensconced on a plane watching the sun rise from above the clouds as we straightened out on our way from Melbourne to Launceston. Not just literal; the sun’s bright, effulgent glow seemed an auspicious way to start the new season and Hawthorn’s defence of its 2013 premiership.

Round 1 of the 2014 season was spread over nine long days and we were just dragging ourselves into the eighth of those. The two weekends of the round bookended the Melbourne Fashion Festival, and if the couture of those aboard my Jetstar flight was any indication, then brown and gold are definitely ‘in’ this season. Two out of every three people on board were wearing either a Hawthorn jumper or jacket, in some cases both, or accessorising with scarves and badges.  Of course this is not a seasonal fad; in my mind Hawthorn is forever in fashion.

It wasn’t just Round 1 that was dragging on. It seemed that season 2013 was still going, and not just because Hawthorn fans continued to gloat over the premiership, but the newspapers I flicked through inflight were full of the Essendon supplements scandal. Tania Hird, in an interview on ABC’s 7.30, had re-aired her gripes about Andrew Demetriou and how he made her husband James a scapegoat (for what, exactly?).

Essendon Chairman Paul Little’s subsequent comment that James needs to control those around him is, you could argue, the cause of the problem in the first place. If Hird had more control over those mixing the cocktails and wielding needles, then perhaps the supplements program might not have gone as far as it did.

I saw this interview not so much as a re-opening of old battles, but an orchestrated event to stir the emotions of the Essendon faithful and create the ‘us against the world’ spirit that served them quite well for long stretches of 2013. And it seemed to work because they won quite handsomely against North Melbourne on the Friday night. Not that the Hirds saw it - they were winging their way to Paris where James was set to commence an all-expenses-paid study program while Tania and the kids enjoyed a holiday. If that’s their idea of persecution, then pin the blame on me.

At large in Launceston

My decision to go to Launceston for the opening game was hastily arranged in the week of the match, so accommodation in Launceston was as scarce as Brisbane fans. I ended up in a single room at the TRC Hotel, which is essentially an old pub transformed into a sports bar – which actually just means it’s a TAB. The room was rudimentary – single bed, table, chair, wardrobe, television, sink, toilet and shower stall – but pretty good value at $60 a night.

Brisbane Street mall is festively decorated with Hawthorn bunting and banners, and many of the shop windows feature brown and gold displays. It’s just after 9am and visiting footy fans wander aimlessly about and fill up the cafes. Birchalls (the shop, not the family of Hawthorn’s Grant) has a great display of my book, ‘High on Hawthorn’, so I introduce myself and sign some copies. Petrarchs, also in Brisbane Street mall, is a good book shop also carrying stock of the book, so I chat to the store owners about books and football.

The match isn’t until 4.40pm so some time in mid-afternoon I walk to the ground. I’m quite early but decide not to pop into a pub, thinking I’ll grab a beer at the ground and sit in the afternoon sun to drink it. Here I discover an unpleasant truth – the bars aren’t open! The match is only an hour away and for reasons which aren’t clear to me, I can’t get a drink. I can’t watch the flag unfurled without raising a drink in toast.

Happily the natural order is soon restored and the bars open. A queue forms immediately. The beer, however, is served in mid-strength cups.

Birchalls window

Cyril - there in spirit - or at least canvass

Something off the back of a ute 

As far as flag ceremonies go, Hawthorn’s unfurling of the 2013 flag must rank as a masterpiece of understatement. In the Olympics Games opening ceremony, half a dozen former sporting champions take about an hour and a half to slowly march the full perimeter of the arena before handing it to a white-gloved general to hoist it slowly up the pole. In military ceremonies, canons are set off, or bugles blown as the flag is unfolded one inch at a time in a bizarre choreographic textile display, while regimented ranks of uniformed personnel stand at stiff salute. In 2011, Collingwood had a guard of honour, laser shows, fireworks, anthemic music, a parade of past champions, possibly even a priest, plus Simon Prestigiacomo looking down from the roof of the Great Southern Stand like Spiderman. I think it was directed by Baz Luhrmann. At Hawthorn, we had the players in their training tops and Brian Lake in the back of a ute.

The flag unfurling extravaganzas!

It’s a quaint tradition – unfurling the premiership flag at the first home match the following season. I’m sure premiership coaches who have spent all summer trying to get their players to forget the past and focus on the forthcoming season don’t appreciate this ceremony of looking back. Perhaps it would be better if it was done at the same time they present the cup, in the rooms after the Grand Final or at the best and fairest dinner. Or in any circumstance that involves it being wound tightly around Kylie’s shimmering body. Brian Lake could grab the pointy bit at the end (of the flag that is) and give it a good tug to send Kylie into a fast spin so that the flag unwinds until she’s deflagged. Like the dance of the seven veils, but with just one flag.

One time honoured ceremony we shouldn’t mess with is the team bursting through the banner to enter the arena. This is a tradition that adds colour and provides an inspirational message to players and fans alike, or at least an ad from the major sponsor. The banner, or run-through, serves as a formal welcome to the team. It’s a crepe paper membrane, the liminal barrier between society and the sporting arena. Like white line fever, but gold crepe fever. But it is more than that. You don’t have to be Freud to see that on a much deeper level the act of bursting through the banner is the re-enactment of the birth moment. The players move down the race, or birth canal, and then break through the banner in a manner reminiscent of parturition. It is a metaphorical rebirth for the team each week. So when Brisbane ran out with no banner, did it mean that they remained unborn – and therefore without a chance – or was it a caesarean? Or was it just that there weren’t enough Brisbane fans at the ground to hold up a banner?

Footy is back!

There are certain signs that football is back. The leaves are beginning to turn, the shops are full of Easter eggs and Sam Mitchell is getting flattened behind play – this time by Brisbane’s Tom Rockliff in the very first passage of play. This early in the season and the Hawks are a little rusty; our dinky kicks are being regularly picked off and the Lions score the first goal.

For several years it’s been a fair bet that our first goal will come from the boot of no. 23, and this was to be no exception. Not Franklin this time, but new boy Tim O’Brien playing his first game. T.O.B.  took a fine mark and slotted a set shot from 50 metres. When Big Ben McEvoy kicked our third goal for the quarter we were left feeling grateful that these new boys were on hand – where would we have been without them?

The second quarter was marked by a great running goal to Liam Shiels, followed by Burgoyne setting up first Rough and then Shiels again. When Gunston marked it looked like we were going to romp away, but The Gun, or Gunstall, as I’ve heard him called, missed. Then he missed another set shot. When Langford and Shiels also missed set shots, we’d gone from 7.3 to 7.6 and our chance to wrap up the match early dissipated.

One thing that became apparent in the second quarter was Clarko’s much vaunted new game plan. All summer there has been talk about how he would tweak the game plan to suit our new personnel and avoid the trap of 2009 where the other teams picked apart our ‘cluster’ with great success. We weren’t going to let that happen again. The new game plan is so simple it’s beautiful: if in doubt kick it high in McEvoy’s general vicinity, a strategy we employed very successfully all day simply because he kept marking it.

A 22 point half-time lead seemed comfortable enough, especially when Breeeuust slotted another one just after the break. But then Brisbane started to get on top. They were playing with energy and endeavour, particularly Daniel Rich. You can forget how good he is until you see him again.  After a fantastic goal to Breust from the 50 metres out on the boundary, the Lions added the next three to close the margin to just two points.  One of them after a Hodge tried a dinky kick with his right foot out wide that only travelled only as far as a Brisbane forward who was just standing around minding his own business when the ball suddenly appeared in front of him at marking height. He calmly took it and slotted the goal.

This was one of a few miskicks of Hodge’s. Watching from Melbourne, Chan-Tha and Pete posted that his new fluro orange boots were to blame. A few of the players were sporting them. They were so bright that perhaps the act of bringing his leg up to kick the ball momentarily blinded him and affected his kick.

We were starting to shift a little uneasily. I had been to Launceston only once previously, in 2009, and that was also to see us play Brisbane. That too was the year after winning the premiership and we lost on that occasion. Surely not again…

…which must have been more or less what Jarryd Roughead was thinking. He yawned, stretched and bustled his way into the action where he snagged a couple for the quarter. As did Breust and Sammy and we were back out to a good lead. In between all this, Jonathan Brown took a classic Brown mark running back with the flight of the ball. As heroic as the mark was, I was still grateful when he missed the kick.

The three quarter time lead was back out to 25 points, but as the final quarter got underway the Hawks started to break clear. Brisbane’s Trent West kicked the first of the quarter but then Gunston regained his aim and slotted a couple, Roughead added another and Breust got his fifth. Hawthorn’s next goal came from Matthew Suckling, playing his first game back since the 2013 pre-season. Suckling’s extraordinary kicking was back to the fore and both he and Taylor Duryea had played well rebounding off half back. Duryea had even competed strongly against the taller, stronger Jonathan Brown.

By this stage twilight was turning to evening and the clouds massing on the mountain overlooking Aurora were shot through with a purple tinge, courtesy of the sunset. Was it nature’s beauty or simply that the Hawks were maintaining a 45 or so point lead that suffused me with a Zen like calm as I sat and watched the final minutes of the match? Roughead added a fifth himself near the end and then Smith popped one through to complete an eight goal final quarter and help hawks fans find oneness.

It was good to see the boys back in action: Bradley Hill, Luke Breust, Liam Shiels, Grant Birchall and Ben McEvoy all played well, as did Sam Mitchell, Shaun Burgoyne, Jordan Lewis and Isaac Smith.   Debutant Derick Wanganeen had a bit of a run late and Langford flaunted his surname.  All in all a satisfying win by the Hawks, one befitting my bright dawn vision.

It was like Grand Final night in Launceston after the match, i.e. the streets were full of packs of drunk Hawthorn fans just wandering about. Perhaps there was a good reason why Aurora serves mid-strength and delays the opening of the bars.

Final scores: Hawthorn 21 13 139  d  Brisbane 13 13 91

Ladder position – 4th

Attendance: 12,430

What we learned: People watch ABC’s 7.30 in larger numbers than we might have suspected. That’s if the furore created by Tania Hird’s appearance on the show is any indication of viewing figures.  Who knew? I only watch it when Leigh Sales is hosting. Perhaps other low rating shows might consider having Tania on to boost their ratings. She could be a guest judge on The Voice or Masterchef. Then James wouldn’t have to work at all.

What we already knew: Age columnist Martin Flanagan is an old softy. In his regular column for the Saturday Age he never fails to highlight, using the prism of football, the plight of the poor, sick and downtrodden. There’s always some story about a bloke who loves a yarn or doesn’t mind a drink, who fought at Gallipoli and returned with just one leg, but still played in a forward pocket for Fitzroy; or war widow Mabel who has barracked for Footscray since 1925 and was in the original Hyde Street band to play at the Western oval, or Wazza who used to sell the Footy Record at Victoria Park and knew John Wren, but whose inner city cottage was forcibly claimed to allow the Eastern freeway to be built, after which he suffered a long illness, clinging to life only just long enough to see the Pies win the 1990 premiership…you know the sort of thing.

This week, however, Marty hints that he might be retiring. He doesn’t say it in so many words, but he’s managed to find a sob story to fit every team, even the Giants, and provide him with a heart warming tale no matter which team claims the flag. I fear that he’s gone too early – that’s a whole season’s worth of material and he’s blown it at Round 1.

What we didn’t know but should have suspected: The Essendon supplements scandal is all Eddie’s fault! At last the truth comes out. One of James Hird’s media advisers, Ian Hanke, in the midst of a Twitter outburst about Andrew Demetriou and the AFL’s handling of the investigation, suddenly suggested that club presidents such as McGuire should go. Now I’m no apologist for Eddie, but whatever faults he may have, I fail to see how he is implicated in this saga. To give Essendon their due - one of the first people they sacked was their unwitting president, Ian Robson, so they are at least walking their own talk. But it does seem that every few weeks Hird’s camp anoints a new public enemy number one. So far they’ve so far tried to blame Age journalist Caroline Wilson, AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou and now Collingwood president Eddie McGuire. Quite possibly James Hird is innocent and Tania is justified and correct, but whoever is responsible for whatever did happen at Essendon, it seems a tad far-fetched to level the blame at this trio.

What we therefore don’t understand: If James Hird and ‘those around him’ hate the AFL and everyone involved in running the game so much, why is he so adamant about returning? For the rest of us - if we don’t like our workplace, our boss, our clients or the industry we find ourselves working in, then the normal course of action is to consider an alternative career.

Really, everyone should stop moaning and give thanks that, for this week at least, Collingwood is on the bottom of the ladder.

Hawthorn Haiku

Orange fluro boots

The flag unfurled in a ute

Clouds on the mountain

Footy's Back...is it?

There’s a weird vibe around town at the moment. People are carrying on saying that footy’s back, The Age and the Herald-Sun are both filling out with pages and pages of arcane footyesque speculation (which team has the most ‘recycled’ players on their list, why it’s time North must deliver, why we should have a night Grand Final, Essendon players suffering from low morale - that’s morale, not morals -  etc ), the television is back showing revelatory footage of footballers handballing to each other at training and coaches getting in and out of cars, and ASADA’s investigation into Essendon moves into its 13th month – the Nuremberg trials, by comparison, ran for just over 10 months, from 20 November 1945 to 1 October 1946. Of course at Nuremberg they were only looking into the crimes of the Third Reich, not the Hird Reich, but if the timeline of the investigation is any indication, ASADA must believe Essendon’s crimes to be even more heinous than the Nazis. I doubt even Dermie wouldn’t go that far.

But if footy’s back, I don’t see it. Sure there are matches for premiership points, sure Caroline Wilson is already banging on about sacking coaches, or at least the boss of the Coaches Association, Danny Frawley, even Andrew Bolt is criticising Adam Goodes, but until I see the boys in brown and gold vertical stripes take the field, which due to an elongated round one spread over nine days, is not until next Saturday, I remain unconvinced.

There’s a well-known philosophical thought experiment that poses the question: “If a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” This question seeks to test the limits of perception and reality, and I would apply the same test to the AFL: if there’s footy’s on, but no Hawthorn to watch, can it really be said to have started?

Footy, as I see it, starts next week when Hawthorn unfurls the premiership flag at Aurora and then goes out to defend its title.

Hawthorn – soooo last year

You would think, wouldn’t you, that after winning the 2013 premiership, the Hawks would be reasonably well-fancied to win the 2014 premiership? After all, we were hot flag favourites in 2012 and 2013 without having won the previous year’s premierships in 2011 and 2012 respectively. So after a 2013 in which we won 22 of 25 games, overcame our long-time nemesis Geelong, easily defeated the other fancied teams Sydney three times and Fremantle twice, came up against just one team we failed to defeat (Richmond, bizarrely enough), then surely 2014 is shaping as yet another year of high expectations and flag favouritism. But no! It seems that without any intervening matches, unless you count our three practice matches that we’ve won by an average of 100+ points, most commentators are picking Hawthorn to finish somewhere between fourth and sixth, well behind our supposed rivals.

The commentators have picked up where they left off in Grand Final week, and keep banging on about Fremantle – the team who on a bright, sunny day with no breeze managed just 1.6 to half-time in the 2013 Grand Final. I knew we had the flag won at half-time because I thought Fremantle would be too embarrassed to come back out for the second half. But their apparent unwillingness to score doesn’t seem to put off any of the experts. And don’t let their relative goal spree against Collingwood fool you – I could have snuck two or three past the Pies defence on Friday night.

Sydney seems to be the other anointed team, on the basis that they weren’t too bad last year, and now they’ve added Franklin. It’s an okay theory on paper, but it doesn’t take into account the Hawthorn curse – that players who leave are never the same again: Mark Williams, Jonathan Hay, Clinton Young, Campbell Brown just to name a few. It seems that when you take off the brown and gold, you take away some of your ability as well. No surprises there. It also doesn’t take into account that they lost their round one match to GWS.

Writing in the Herald-Sun on 15 March, Dermott Brereton picks Hawthorn to finish outside the top 4 on the basis that our midfield is ageing and we’re likely to suffer all manner of injuries. On the question of injuries, does he know something we don’t? Is it a kind of veiled threat? He writes as if he’s aware of a plague about to sweep through the club.

On the issue of age, I presume that Hawthorn players age at more or less the same rate as players from other clubs, unless they suffer from some sort of HGPS progeria syndrome – or ageing disease. Perhaps he’s just trying to revive the ‘too old, too slow’ tag as a form of reverse psychology to spur on the players. Because it’s not as if Sydney and Freo are in the flush of youth.  Some of their players are so old they were around last time beards were in fashion.

Just on Buddy’s beard, what is going on there? Is he just trying to fit in with his hirsute team mates? Is the cost of living so high in Sydney that no one can afford razors, even on $10 million over nine years? I mean really, at Hawthorn he was a handsome heart throb with dashing good looks, whereas now he looks like someone who’d be stopped for questioning if he tried to get through customs in LAX.

Hawthorn v Melbourne practice match, or why rugby is crap

If, as the experts predict, Hawthorn is not really a premiership threat for 2014, then you wonder how new Demons coach Paul Roos viewed the Hawks’ demolition of Melbourne in the most recent practice match. The final score of 21.16.142 to 4.8.32 suggests the Hawks haven’t lost a lot of their touch.

There’s no real point covering this match – Roughead kicked six and Stratton injured his hamstring, but the only other talking point was Josh Gibson kicking two goals in quick succession. They were good goals too – and wearing the number 6, they had a touch of the Gladys Moncrieff about them.

The only other notable aspect to this match was that nearly 10,000 people turned up to watch – for a practice match!  This in the same week the NRL HQ posited its usual ridiculous prediction that rugby league would overtake the AFL as Australia’s number one footy code, even thought Round one of the NRL drew an average attendance of less than 16,000 people per game. Attendances like that barely warrant putting the game on, let alone declaring imminent domination.

Besides, rugby league won’t overtake the AFL as the number one footy code for one very simple reason – it’s a shit game. It is after all a game in which you move forward by going backwards, so there’s a refutation of logic right there. It’s a game where the only skill is throwing and catching, two aptitudes most people master by about the age of six. It is always amusing to see footage from training of big burly blokes practicing throwing the ball to each other– is it really something you need to practice? Most tellingly, it’s a game where you score by falling over.

Rugby Union is a better game, but it’s still rugby. Its proponents would have us believe that it is a superior sport because it has international reach. But really, any sport in which New Zealand and Wales are the leading powerhouses can hardly be said to be the global game. And if it really is the game they play in heaven, then it simply reinforces preconceptions that heaven is a boring place to be.

The CEO is dead…long live the CEO

AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou has announced that he will resign at the end of the 2014 season. Naturally enough talk has immediately turned to speculation about his successor.

There are some obvious candidates: Gillon McLachlan, Demetriou’s current 2IC, seems to be the early favourite. He is popular in media circles, a jibe that could never be levelled at Demetriou, and with his brother Hamish embedded with host broadcaster Channel 7, pretty much guarantees positive coverage of AFL stories, not unlike state run television in Russia or North Korea. If it is anything like North Korea, however, Hamish would be wise to cultivate a better relationship with Gillon than some of Kim Jung-un’s relatives enjoy with their Supreme Leader. Certainly there will be perceptions of a conflict of interest when the next broadcast rights deal is negotiated, but that is unavoidable anyway; the AFL would be in danger of crumbling into nothing if you were to dismantle every strata of conflict of interest that exists between the AFL, the media and the separate clubs. That’s in no one’s interest.

Of course you can’t use the phrase ‘conflict of interest’ without then citing the name Eddie McGuire, especially if you’re Caroline Wilson. Fairly or unfairly, Eddie is synonymous with conflict of interest, or just Collingwood, and that’s enough to turn everyone off and scupper any ambitions he may harbour of being El Supremo.

Jeff Kennett is another name that is automatically thrown into the ring when any leadership position becomes vacant. Of course it’s usually Jeff tossing the millinery creation, so no one takes much notice. If nothing else he’d make things interesting.

But I feel the AFL needs to look beyond its own to fill this position, and as luck would have it, there are some excellent candidates who have become available in recent months: candidates with worldly experience beyond the small and parochial world of football: candidates who have consorted in the corridors of influence and dabbled in the cut and thrust of global politics. Mary Wooldridge is one such person: having lost Liberal pre-selection for the seat of Doncaster or Kew, or whatever leafy conservative protectorate she resides in, Mary could bring some Spring Street cache to the role. And if Geoff Shaw doesn’t retain the seat of Frankston at the next election, well, perhaps he could bring some of his own Demetriouesque style of debate to proceedings.

Of course, if we’re talking deposed politicians, who is more qualified than ex-lawyer and indeed, ex-PM, Julia Gillard. At least she follows football. Her choice of the Western Bulldogs may seem misguided, and as good a reason as any to have deposed her from The Lodge in the first place, but she could use her position to grant the Scraggers some special treatment. Just on that, if the Sydney Swans and GWS have a higher salary cap commensurate with the higher cost of living in Sydney, based as it is on spiralling real estate prices and the cost of soy-lattes, doesn’t it follow that teams like the Western Bulldogs and Port Adelaide should have a reduced salary cap to match the plummeting real estate of Footscray and Alberton?

Being a modern, thrusting organisation with global reach, the AFL might do well to cast its focus internationally. Exiled Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych doesn’t have much to do at the moment and like Demetriou, he has the ability to create division and stir discontent. I question his ability to maintain authority if Crimea gets a team in the AFL, but otherwise he could be the man for the job. On the other hand, you have to wonder about life in Ukraine if given the choice, a large proportion of its people would rather be ruled by Russia.

‘Travoltify’ the Brownlow 

Another man who should be considered for the role is John Travolta. I think we all agree that one of the most important roles the CEO undertakes is to read the votes on Brownlow night. No job interview for the new CEO should conclude until the candidate has intoned the words, “Gold Coast. G.Ablett. Three votes” or “Collingwood. S Prestagiacomo one vote” (well, as if he’d ever warrant more than that). This is where Travolta will have a natural advantage, given his recently demonstrated facility for names.

During the Academy Awards John Travolta was introducing the singer who was set to perform the nominated song from the movie, Frozen.  His preamble was going well, but then he introduced Idina Menzel as Adele Dazeem. The best part is he incorporated the caveat ‘the one and only’ into his preamble, when in fact she is neither. It’s not often that a complete nobody performs at the Oscars, but on this occasion it happened, quite literally, because Adele Dazeem didn’t exist until John Travolta invented her.

So if he can’t get the name Idina Menzel correct, what would he do with the names of Hawthorn’s  Brownlow fancies?

Well lucky there’s an app to help us out. Slate.com has an app where you can ‘Travoltify’ your name. You type your name into the field, and the system works out how John Travolta would say it should he ever have occasion to be introducing you at the Academy Awards.

For example, Alastair Clarkson becomes Abigail Crawzford; Luke Hodge is Lee Hufes and Cyril Rioli would be known as Cathal Ramso.

Jarry Roughead transforms into the very exotic sounding Jorja Reezeed, while Sam Mitchell becomes Struan Mitcheem and Matt Spangher is Milo Sgardener.

This could certainly enliven Brownlow night, especially as Gary Ablett winning is a foregone conclusion. Of course if John Travolta became CEO, we'd have to rename the Brownlow as the Hubbard medal. For the record, Andrew Demetriou takes on the somewhat more dashing nomenclature, Ayden Daveries.

"Two votes. Hawthorn, J Reezeed." 

High on Hawthorn Book Launch - Readings Hawthorn

High on Hawthorn - the book version of Twenty3 - was launched on Wednesday 5 March at Readings bookshop in Hawthorn.

Television identity and radio broadcaster Trevor Marmalade officially launched the book, breaking a bottle of metaphorical champagne over its bow.

In attendance were my friends and family as well as Hawthorn supporters who contributed to the photo section of the book

Below are some of the photos of the night. The gallery will gradually grow commensurate with additions from friends and my patience inserting them.

That's what I call decor

Trevor Marmalade launches High on Hawthorn

The author takes the stand

I think we're discussing exactly how the Hawks will go back to back in 2014

Adding a dedication

Romayne Perera - in the book she has a balloon

Either the camera is at a weird angle, or I am

Great to meet more Hawks!

My 'Garp' moment

The Ultimate Flappy Birds - Hawthorn 2013 - 2014

Flappy Birds 

Flappy bird with cup

Twenty3 is back!  It is with a certain joi de vivre that we return for season 2014 with the Hawks as reigning premiers – a title we get to drop into conversations with gratuitous regularity all season.

We also return as a version of last season’s Twenty3 blog entries are buffed, refurbished and collected in a volume called ‘High on Hawthorn: the road to the 2013 premiership’ to be published next week by Nero. You’ll find it in bookstores with a distinctive brown and gold striped cover. It’s also available on e-book and is currently ranked 207,371 in the Kindle store.

So while Hawthorn is going for back-to-back in 2014, Twenty3 is also going for the sequel. It’s a common complaint that movie sequels are never as good as the original, but if the Hawks get up again in 2014, the sequel will, by definition, be every bit as good as the original. And with books, some sequels even improve on the original – Harry Potter for instance. Young Harry is a good case in point actually because as you’ll have noticed, he wears a brown and gold Hawthorn scarf. And if he’s any sort of omen, remember there are seven books in the series – that’s a septet of flags!

Okay, so we might be getting ahead of ourselves, but summer did bring with it a few key omens that indicate the Hawks remain in the ascendant. In the USA, the Hawks also reign with the Chicago Blackhawks winning the 2013 Stanley Cup in the National Ice Hockey League and the Seattle Seahawks – we’ll just call them both the Hawks – defeating the Denver Broncos in New Jersey to win Superbowl XLVIII. Even the half-time margin of 22 points was eerily similar to Hawthorn’s half-time lead in the Grand Final against Fremantle which was, of course 23 points. As in the AFL Grand Final, the Superbowl was effectively over by that stage, a point highlighted by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers when they played ‘Give it Away’ during the half-time show, presumably a pointed comment to the Broncos.

Also over summer a game for smart phones and tablets called ‘Flappy Bird’ took the world by storm. In fact it became so successful and addictive that its developer, Dong Nguyen took it off line so he could regain his peace.  The game requires the player to tap the screen of their phone to keep a hawk-like bird aloft and to steer it between the gaps of a series of unevenly spaced perpendicular pipes – that look not unlike goal posts in fact. You score one point for each gap you get through and if the bird so much as brushes a pipe, it crashes to the ground. It is a simple enough concept, but devilishly difficult to play. Comparing top scores became a matter of pride among players, with anyone reporting a score above 50 being thought of as highly suspect. My own top score, spookily enough, is 11 – the exact number of premierships Hawthorn has won.

While Flappy Bird’s ascendancy mirrors Hawthorn’s, hopefully the Hawks will not become victims of their own success in the same way as Flappy Bird, something we experienced in 2009.

The Hangover

One of the most successful movies of 2009 was called The Hangover starring Zack Galifianakis, Bradley Cooper and Justin Bartha. The film revolves around four men who travel to Las Vegas on a bachelor party weekend. The men check in to a suite in Caesars Palace. The next morning three of them awaken to discover that the suite is a complete ruin, one of them is missing a tooth, there is a baby and a chicken in the suite, and a tiger in the bathroom. Also the groom is missing. The three men spend the movie trying to piece together what happened the previous night while looking for the groom.

2009: Lest We Forget

Coincidentally, 2009 was the year of another famous hangover – Hawthorn’s premiership hangover. After winning the premiership in 2008 the Hawks stumbled through 2009 like men who had just emerged from a night of Dionysian carousing in Vegas, which in some cases, perhaps they had. It was the premiership hangover to end all hangovers as we missed the finals completely. For many fans it contained all the facets of an actual hangover; an intolerance of bright lights, a thumping headache, an inability to recall key events and a vague sense that something horrific had happened. And just as in the movie where Tracy Garner, Stu Price and Phil Wenneck spend the movie trying to find the missing groom and struggling to recall what occurred the previous evening, the Hawks spent much of 2009 trying to find their lost form and struggling to recall Clarko’s game plan.

The premiership hangover was so bad it lasted until Round 8 of 2010. Much has therefore been made over summer of Clarko needing to keep innovating so that we don’t suffer the same sort of hangover as we did in 2009. But as I said back in 09, to have a premiership hangover, you first have to win the premiership. Wouldn’t St Kilda or The Bulldogs love the chance to suffer a premiership hangover? So if we have to bury ourselves in the pillow, reach for the Panadol and keep the blinds shut, then I can cope.

Besides, after the anxiety of 2012/13 when we finished on top and suffered under the weight of expectation that goes along with that, it might be nice and relaxing to chill through the 2014 season without any real expectancy.

I say that now of course, but once the season is underway I’ll feel the same sense of angst and anticipation as always; I’ll feel the same anxiety whenever we’re less than six goals in front, and be as raucous in my cheering whenever Sammy and Cyril get hold of the ball or Rough and Gunston pull in a mark.

The Hangover has grown into a franchise with two sequels. We don’t want a sequel of the 2009 premiership hangover, but from the moment the ball is bounced in Round one at Aurora, we’ll be looking for the best sort of sequel – back-to-back flags. Go Hawks!

Big Ben chimes in – Ben McEvoy joins Hawthorn

Hawthorn’s main recruiting coup during the trade period was signing Ben McEvoy from St Kilda to replace retiring premiership ruckman, Max Bailey.

I don’t know much about Big Ben and my enquiries to Saints fans didn’t enlighten me much either; with  some saying he’s a fine player who will be good for the Hawks, and others saying he’s an okay mark around the ground but not much good in the ruck. This is a shame because he’s just been recruited as our no. 1 ruckman.

Of course when taking such advice from Saints fans you have to remind yourself that ‘good’ is a relative term and never more so than from supporters of a team that has won only one premiership. It is just possible that Big Ben will join the pantheon of Hawthorn recruits who fit the ‘inspired decision’ tag, such as Stuart Dew, Shaun Burgoyne, Josh Gibson and Brian Lake.  Or the pantheon of ordinary St Kilda players who transformed themselves (or became transformed?) into champions the minute they slipped the brown and gold verticals over their heads, such as Russell Greene, Brent Guerra, Stuart Trott, Spider Everitt, Joel Smith, even Allan Jeans.

Also, does it really matter if he knows what to do in the ruck? It’s never bothered Hawthorn overly much in the past. After all, we won a premiership with Bernie Jones in the ruck, so having a great ruckman is clearly not an imperative. Besides, with Sammy, Cyril, the Poo, Jordan Lewis and Brad Hill scuttling about under his feet, it doesn’t really matter if Big Ben wins the tap out – as long as he competes, the ball will come to ground no matter who wins the tap, where our fellas will snaffle it up and scoot off with it.

And should Clarko decide that winning the ruck duel occasionally is a tactic worth pursuing; well, we have The Monkey, Damien Monkhurst, on hand as ruck coach. On game day the former Collingwood great can usually be found sitting on the Hawthorn bench looking svelte and relaxed in a brown team track-suit, vigorously chewing gum, one hand hidden in a pocket and the other perennially holding a phone to his ear. Who he is communing with and just why it extends throughout the entire match remains a mystery. If he’s talking to the coaching panel in the box, why doesn’t he just sit up there with them? It’s not like he moves around the boundary, or even stands up. Or is it just that there isn’t enough room in the box for his somewhat imposing figure?

Savage cuts – Shane Savage and Xavier Ellis leave Hawthorn

Just as with any new boyfriend or girlfriend, we’ll take pleasure in Big Ben’s presence; admire his ability, his blond curls and his raunchy ruck moves. But of course to get him to the club we had to dump our previous partner, and Shane Savage was the player who we felt we’d outgrown, the player who stormed out of the restaurant when we broke the bad news. I’ll miss Savage – he’s a good player, quick and he usually manages a goal or two. Admittedly his kicks were always stratospherically high, so there was no chance of him delivering a lace out pass on the chest, but he always contributed to the team. He was very unlucky not to be selected in the 2013 Grand Final side.  As it turned out Simpkin was a good selection who played well when he came on, but Savage must have been next in line, and there’s no reason to suspect he wouldn’t have done equally well.

Xavier Ellis also left the Hawks, going to West Coast. Ellis has been desperately unlucky with injury over the past few years and these have hampered his career. As a player he’s always reminded me a bit of Nick Dal Santo (who also changed clubs this season); he’s a classy left-footer who gets hold of the ball and delivers it with polish. The only difference is he’s probably a bit better endowed, or even if he’s not, at least we haven’t all seen the pictures. Ellis remains one of the best exponents of the sub-10 metre pass, but he’ll always be loved at Hawthorn for his standout game in the 2008 Grand Final.

Ellis joins former Hawk assistant coach Adam Simpson, who has replaced John Worsfold at the helm of West Coast. We’ll miss both of them.

It will be a bit like running into an old girlfriend when we see Savage in his Saints outfit and Ellis running around with the Eagles in 2014 – at first in the instant before we recognise them, we’ll see something that attracts us, something to admire. Then we’ll realise who it is and understand the attraction, perhaps remember the good times; Ellis’ precision passing in 08, Savage slotting the sealer against Collingwood in 2012. I hope they both do well with their new clubs, though obviously there are limits to that. After all, we never want our old partner to outshine our new one.

Unapologetic – clubbing with Rhianna and Campbell Brown

Check out my "Hawks Premiers 2013 tatt!"

Summer in Australia is associated with beaches, bronze bodies, batting collapses and bushfires. And of course footballers caught drinking and brawling in popular tourist destinations, posting nude photos and working on the edges of consensual sex.

Campbell Brown, champion half-back and member of Hawthorn’s 2008 premiership team, has always been a footballer’s footballer – a man with old-fashioned beliefs on how to play the game. He attacks the ball and his opponents with equal ferocity. He believes that what happens on the field stays on the field, a creed that obviously extends to the footy trip.

But after last season, the thing he left on the footy trip with the Gold Coast Suns was his career after he broke the jaw of teammate Steven May.

According to stories at the time, a contingent of Suns players plus Hawk star Josh Gibson had been asked to leave Bootsy Bellows nightclub in West Hollywood because Rhianna and her entourage were due to arrive. May, it transpired, tried to force his way back into the club to get Rhianna’s autograph – well fair enough, he’s only human, whereupon Josh Gibson tried to stop him. When May abused Gibson, Campbell Brown allegedly stepped in and threw two punches. Whatever the truth of this tale, the result is that Brown broke May’s jaw and was subsequently sacked by the Suns.

Of course no one condones violence, but the furore over May’s broken jaw and Brown’s sacking seem to have obscured the real scandal here. After all, Campbell Brown was sticking up for Gibson. But also, why was Peter Crimmins medallist and premiership hero Josh Gibson asked to leave a nightclub just because of Rhianna?

If anything Ri Ri should have insisted on Gibson staying so she could meet him. He is, after all, the real star. And not that I want to get too far ahead of myself, but the pair would make a great power couple – the best since Becks and Posh, or even, if the rumours are true, Barack and Beyonce. And just think of the father-son prospects: Gibson’s ball reading ability and judgement combined with Rhianna’s dance moves, well, the little fella would be unstoppable – to say nothing of his good looks, hot bod and marketing potential.

It’s hard to know what Campbell Brown will do now. You suspect that he didn’t have much of a plan for post football. Or if he did, it was probably working in ‘the media’ a sphere where, like Acker before him, his currency is exhausted the minute he’s not actually playing the game.  If nothing else, media organisations will be scared of what he might get up to at the Christmas party once the free bar runs out.

Mandela and Hawthorn  

As the world’s dignitaries flew into Johannesburg to honour the late Nelson Mandela, or ‘Madiba’ as the western media suddenly started referring to him to give the impression they were more intimately acquainted with him than was actually the case, it was pleasing to see that Australia sent ambassadors who carry the requisite dignity and standing that such an occasion demands. I’m not referring to Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop (even though she is one of Australia’s most convincing Dermie lookalikes), nor Catholic Archbishop George Pell, or even AFL supremo Andrew Demetriou.

Of course it was Hawthorn led by Luke Hodge who took the time to pay tribute to the great Mandela, before getting out the Sherrins for pre-season training exercises and a few clinics with the kids – it’s what Nelson would have wanted.

And really, who better to help a grieving nation find renewed hope than the mighty Hawks?

It’s fair to say that up until the moment of his death, Nelson Mandela was probably the most universally loved and admired person on the planet, with the possible exception of Kylie. So his sad passing leaves a vacancy for the most noble and respected human alive. It’s a vacancy that in other circumstances I might have nominated Buddy to fill, but with his, well, let’s not beat about the bush, treacherous defection to Sydney, he no longer qualifies.

No, this role requires someone of impeccable standing, someone with dignity and humility, someone who has experienced adversity and emerged triumphant, someone who can forgive enemies, in short, a noble and honourable person, and I can only think of one man…Jarryd Roughead! Okay, I’ll also accept Luke Hodge, Cyril Rioli and Sam Mitchell. Just as Mandela was respected by all politicians – left, right, socialist, kooky right, whatever the ALP is – so Rough, Hodge, Cyril and Sammy are respected by all footy fans, no matter what team they support.

Step it up Cyril

On 2 February 2014 Matt Murnane wrote a piece in The Age listing the players from each team that need to ‘step up’, to take the leap from being a ‘good’ player to become a ‘great’ player – the sort of player who can make a real difference to their team’s fortunes. For Hawthorn he nominated, wait for it, Cyril Rioli!

To me that’s a bit like telling Don Bradman that it’s time he turned his ‘starts’ into big scores, or advising Mitch Johnson to ramp up the pace a bit.

Next to Buddy, Cyril is perhaps the most exciting player to emerge at Hawthorn over the past six years. In 2013 we defeated North Melbourne twice narrowly, and on each occasion it was Cyril Rioli’s inspired play that got us over the line.

Stepping up isn’t Cyril’s problem, so much as stepping out, given that it’s his hamstring that defeats him more often than any opponent does. In his article Matt Murnane allowed for Cyril’s injury hampered 2013 as a factor behind his inability to have a greater impact in matches. He cited, however, that Rioli had no 20 plus possession games after he returned from injury in round 15, and only one game in which he kicked more that one goal. This may well be true, but he still makes a difference every time he gets the ball, and a match where Cyril gets 19 possessions and kicks a goal is usually a match we’re going to win. Seriously, if Rioli is our biggest problem then Hawks fans can start planning where they’re going to celebrate the back-to-back flag in 2014 and look forward to our threepeat in 2015.

In my view the player who really needs to step up is Tim O’Brien – the man who has assumed, or rather ascended to the famous number 23.  As a red head, O’Brien is probably accustomed to being singled out for attention, so perhaps he’ll handle wearing the number 23 with calm and poise. Let’s hope so, but let’s hope he also wears it with a touch of flair and zest as well, because he’s now the eponymous face of this blog. So whether it be on the field with bags of goals, or off the field with a posse of babes or a blaze of controversy doesn’t matter, so long as he distinguishes himself quickly and adds to the aura of the number 23 0 or at least justifies the name of this blog.

Brett Lee gets Rough treatment

"Take this Rough!"

While Hawthorn was cruising from victory to victory during 2013, the Australian cricket team was being soundly beaten in the Ashes series in England. Back in Australia, however, Mitchell Johnson worked on his action and his moustache so that come the return series on home soil, Australia was able to reverse the earlier result and win back the Ashes defeating England 5-0.

As satisfying as that was, by far the best cricket story over summer was the news of Jarryd Roughead smashing a six off the bowling of Brett Lee in the Ricky Ponting charity match in Launceston. While this became a talking point, Hawthorn fans weren’t really surprised. After all, Rough is the reigning Coleman medallist and it’s not at all unusual for him to score six-pointers in Launceston.

Australian of the Year

Prime Minister Tony Abbott named Sydney Swans champ Adam Goodes as Australian of the Year for 2014.  This is a tremendous honour and I’m pleased that at last an AFL player has finally been recognised in this way – after all every other sport has at least one Australian of the Year representative, and it seems to come as part of the package when you captain the cricket team.

While it’s undeniable that Adam Goodes is an impressive leader and spokesperson for not only indigenous people, but all Australians, I can’t help but question whether he is the best choice for this honour.  Sure he campaigns tirelessly for the rights of indigenous people, raises his voice against racism, gives his time to a number of charities and advocates for equality in education. But is that really enough to qualify him as Australian of the Year?

Surely foremost among the criteria in the minds of those who elect our Australian of the Year is whether or not the candidate played or plays for Hawthorn? If it’s not bad enough that Sam Mitchell is regularly overlooked in Brownlow voting, or even for King of Moomba (how come Bert Newton gets a second go when Sam has yet to don the ceremonial garb?), it’s defies comprehension that he hasn’t also been Australian of the Year at least once already. Likewise Luke Hodge and Jarryd Roughead, one the reigning premiership captain, the other the reigning Coleman medallist – these are the qualities I consider paramount in selecting the representative of our nation. I can’t help thinking that Australian of the Year honours might come under yet another obscure clause in the Swans’ ever-growing salary cap allowance.

NAB Challenge 1

Hawthorn v Brisbane

Etihad Stadium, Thursday 13 February 2014

Thank God footy’s back! And not just because we love it and want to see our Hawks in action, but anything to get Schapelle Corby off the front page and out of our consciousness. Don’t get me wrong, nine years in an Indonesian gaol is too long for carrying a bit of hooch (well, quite a lot of hooch actually), but even so, parole the poor girl by all means. However, the constant speculation in the weeks leading up to her release and the live crosses and ongoing commentary from reporters who no more understand the Indonesian justice system than they can explain quantum physics has left me feeling like I’ve been serving my own sentence.
Such was the saturation coverage it showed up on NASA satellite photos from space. It was nearly as relentless as the ‘will Buddy go?’ coverage of 2013. But Buddy’s gone and Schapelle’s out, so we can turn our minds to what really matters…Hawthorn.

It’s our first official match for the 2014 season – a NAB Challenge game against Brisbane. The accepted position to adopt for the pre-season matches is that it doesn’t really matter if we win; it’s just a good opportunity to play the kids and to shake off a few cobwebs. Of course the reality is that I do care whether we win. So it was heart warming to see the Hawks put on a show and win by a comfy 131 points. Was it churlish of me to be a tad disappointed that the Hawks took their foot off the pedal in the final quarter and allowed the Lions to rally and kick two goals to triple their score?

I was unable to attend the game, so followed it on the AFL app, and wondered if something was wrong, because every time I refreshed we’d added a goal, sometimes two or three. So swift was the scoring and the app updating that I began to fear the Hawks would exhaust my data usage allowance.

Just think, in our two most recent games, the 2013 Grand Final against Fremantle and this, the opening NAB cup game against Brisbane – the opposition have managed just 1.6 and 1.3 respectively in the first half. That’s an aggregate of just 2.9 over four quarters.

Brisbane may be disheartened at the score their youngsters managed to post against the Hawks, but they should take some solace from the fact that the Dockers – against the same defence managed just 1.6 to half time of the 2013 Grand Final. Not bad for a team who, according to the majority of footy pundits, has a suspect defence. In fact with just one kick in the second quarter, a nine-pointer from outside 50, Matt Suckling equalled Brisbane’s entire first half score of 1.3.9.

It was, after all, Valentine’s Day eve and there was already a lot to love about the Hawks: Jack Gunston’s 5 goals, Matt Suckling’s return and the form of Sam Mitchell, Liam Shiels, Cyril Rioli, Brad Hill and Big Ben McEvoy. Cupid, it seems, plays for Hawthorn.

You just have to hope that sitting back in her Channel 7 sponsored resort, Schapelle took the chance to lift her veil, tune into Fox Footy and relish her newfound freedom, as exemplified by the way Hawthorn played.

Final scores: Hawthorn 1.22.13 154  d Brisbane 3.5. 23

Schapelle, a Queenslander, can't look on as the Hawks demolish Brisbane

NAB Challenge 2

Hawthorn v North Melbourne

Aurora Stadium, Friday 21 February 2014

Last time we played North Melbourne at Aurora, Buddy kicked 13 goals and Hawthorn won by over 100 points. This match would be different for obvious reasons; firstly Buddy’s absence, but also during the two meetings in the home and away rounds of 2013, North held the ascendency for large parts of each match and could have won both if not for Cyril Rioli. So we expected a closer match than our first NAB Cup challenge game against Brisbane the previous week.

However, after Hawthorn kicked the first six goals of the match, it appeared that those expectations were completely misguided. This was reinforced when you noted that Hawthorn’s first quarter goal kickers were Liam Shiels with three and Hale, Simpkin and Langford with one each – not the usual names in Hawthorn’s goalkicking column. It suggested a rout was on the cards.

Again I was following this match via the AFL app from Cabinet where I was having after-work drinks with my friend Chan-Tha and her sister Dara. We were mid-cocktail (or in my case, pot of Boags) when we noted that Tim O’Brien wearing the no.23 added his first goal for the Hawks – here’s cheers! This was followed by Langford kicking a second. And even though North evened it out a bit in the second quarter, it didn’t bode well for them that they were still five goals in arrears at half-time and Gunston and Roughead hadn’t yet registered on the scoreboard.

In fact North’s half time score was just 3.5.23, and Hawthorn didn’t have Lake, Birchall or Stratton in defence. When you add this to Brisbane’s half time score the previous week of 1.3, and Fremantle’s half-time score in the Grand Final of 1.6 – over the three matches, the opposition has kicked just 5.11 to Hawthorn’s 27.16 in the first half of football.

All very positive for the Hawks and as we skipped away in a dominant second half it became clear that the NAB Challenge was proving to be anything but. And with our next warm-up match against Melbourne, there is a danger that we might be peaking too early. Although it’s good to start as we mean to go on.


Final scores: Hawthorn 18.10. 118  d  North Melbourne 7.11. 53


While there might be plenty of on field reasons for Hawks fans to be getting cocky about the 2014 season, there is still some off field issues about which we can feel less proud. A Hawthorn fan was ejected from the ground for allegedly making racist comments to Majack Daw from North Melbourne. The only positive aspect of this was that it was other Hawks fans who pointed him out to police.

Of course it defies logic that football fans continue to make these remarks, especially fans of teams with Indigenous players on their list. Just think of the great African and African-American athletes in the world and imagine how much better AFL could become once a few more African born players follow Majack Daw’s lead.

In the USA former Washington Wizards basketball player and potential Brooklyn Nets recruit, Jason Collins, came out as gay in the NBA off-season. This caused little apparent fuss. The fact that he’s African-American went completely unremarked of course. It makes me wonder that if we’re still struggling with Majack Daw’s skin colour, it’s probably a few years yet before an AFL player comes out as openly gay.

High on Hawthorn - pre-sale discount offer and interview

High on Hawthorn - pre-sale discount offer

High on Hawthorn: the Road to the 2013 Premiership is out soon. In a special pre-sale offer, order your copy now for just $12.99 (rrp $19.99) plus receive a 'High on hawthorn' badge!

Visit http://www.themonthly.com.au/shop/blackinc/high-hawthorn for details.Or click here.

Interview with Tony Wilson

Writer, broadcaster and former Hawk, Tony Wilson talks to Phillip Taylor about High on Hawthorn.
Check it out here.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA_3KhtoTgg

Competition – Have your photos included in High on Hawthorn:

Competition – Have your photos included in High on Hawthorn

Nero is publishing 'High on Hawthorn: the road to the 2013 premiership' in March 2014.

The book is based on this blog and you could have your photo included in the published edition..

We’re running a competition for Hawks fans to have their photos included in the book.

Do you have photos from 2013 Grand Final parties, the Hawks cheer squad, Hawthorn fans, or your pets dressed up in the glorious brown and gold?

What to do: email your photos to highonhawthorn@blackincbooks.com by Tuesday 31 December 2013.

What do I get?:Glory, obviously, and your photos included in the book! You’ll also receive a free copy of the book when it comes out. Everyone who enters the competition will also be eligible to buy copies of the book at a 50% discount.

Image specifications: Photos of fans, grand final parties, friends and family at football games and pets dressed up in Hawthorn colours from the 2013 season. Please include a brief (25 words or less) description of where the photo was taken and when, and who appears in it (if the subjects wish to be named). Photos need to be supplied in the highest resolution possible, and photographers need to clear permission with subjects before entering the competition.

Competition closes Tuesday 31 December 2013. Only winning photographers will be notified.

Good luck – we look forward to seeing your best shots!

For more info, click here.

Grand Final - Hawthorn v Fremantle

Saturday 28 September 2013, MCG, crowd 100,008. 



Paradise regained - the Hawthorn zeitgeist

Hawthorn…Premiers 2013! 

Nice hat John Snr
photo: abc.net.au

In the first chapter of this epic tale, we looked at Milton’s poem Paradise Lost and saw parallels between the fall of man and the fall of Hawthorn in the 2012 decider. Moving on to the sequel, Paradise Regained, we saw that it could read as an allegory for how the 2013 season would unfold; where what was lost in 2012 is regained in 2013, and that is exactly what has come to pass.

Paradise regained indeed. We are the zeitgeist!



…a fiery Globe
Of Angels on full sail of wing flew nigh
Who on their plumy Vans receiv'd him soft
From his uneasie station, and upbore
As on a floating couch through the blithe Air, [ 585 ]
Then in a flowry valley set him down
On a green bank, and set before him spred
A table of Celestial Food, Divine
Ambrosial, Fruits fetcht from the tree of life
And from the fount of life Ambrosial drink, [ 590 ]
That soon refresh'd him wearied, and repair'd
What hunger, if aught hunger had impair'd
Or thirst, and as he fed, Angelic Quires
Sung Heavenly Anthems of his victory…

Pete, Chan-Tha and the author take in H&C

Okay so it’s a little more baroque than Mark ‘Robbo’ Robinson of the Herald-Sun might put it, but it’s a fairly clear description of Luke Hodge being chaired around the ground on the lap of honour, taken back to the rooms and there refreshed with ambrosial water from the Fount of Life, or the premiership cup as we know it.

The angelic choirs singing ‘heavenly anthems of victory’ is a clear reference to the mighty swarm of Hawk fans belting out the team song at the ground, as well as the players’ rendition in the winners circle in the rooms.

It was a great triumph. A tour de force!

Yes I cried, I fist-pumped and high-fived. I hugged strangers (and may even have inseminated a couple) and sang out loud and out of tune, but what a glorious day…

Let’s go back to the beginning of the week and track the final chapter of Hawthorn’s 11th premiership as it took shape.

Grand final week diary

Sunday 22 September

We know our opponent – it’s Hawthorn v Fremantle. Fremantle played impressively well to defeat Sydney the previous night, exerting intense pressure on the Swans and with a rabid crowd behind them, they’ve got people talking.

So much so that Channel 9’s Sunday Footy Show panel all pick Freo to win the big one. Ryan Crowley is suddenly cast as the potential match winner, Ballantyne as the most dangerous key forward on the day. It’s seemingly been forgotten that the Hawks have won 21 of 24 games so far and achieved key wins – Sydney in Round 7 and Essendon in Round 18 – through intense tackling pressure. Surely reason will prevail by the end of the week.


Monday 23 September – Brownlow night

Another baffling night at the Brownlow when one of Hawthorn’ good and great fail to win the award. It seems the umpires don’t think much of us either. On seven occasions when Hawthorn won the match, a player from the opposition was awarded the 3 votes. Okay, one of them was Gary Ablett, so fair enough, but six others, including Josh Kennedy from the Eagles in Round 13 – seriously?

Talking of Josh Kennedy, the Sydney one this time, it is to be hoped he polls well next year, if only so the camera can regularly pick out his partner, Ana Calle.

Despite winning 19 games, more than any other team, we only came fourth on the vote tally – a full 12 votes behind leader Sydney. I remind myself that the award is voted for by umpires, so I really shouldn’t be surprised.

While I’m disappointed Sammy didn’t win, I never thought he would, and really, had anyone other than Ablett won it, the award would have had to have been abandoned due to a lack of relevance, like the NAB Cup or the Gold Logie.


Tuesday 24 September  – Open Mike

Former Herald-Sun footy journalist and Fox footy host Mike Sheahan posits his belief that win or lose, Alastair Clarkson will leave Hawthorn and coach West Coast next season.  What a bizarre, and it would seem, deliberately spiteful thing to announce in Grand Final week. Even worse, all football journalists pick up the errant ball and run with it.

It’s as ludicrous as the Canberra press gallery trying to bring on a government leadership spill in the lead-up to the election…oh wait, they did. Unlike the Rudd Gillard stand off, however, there seems to be no basis whatsoever for this assertion other than a wilful desire to throw a distraction into Hawthorn’s preparation.

Mike of course is famous for his utterly pointless Top 50 player lists, so were we to draw up such a list for footy journalists, and I adopt the broadest possible definition of the term ‘journalist’ so that we can include Mike, we’d have to position him somewhere below Mark Maclure, though that would still put him above Robbo.

Over on Footy Classified and Talking Footy they’re also going for Freo. I mean you don’t expect any sense from Matthew Lloyd, but even Garry Lyon, who you can usually rely on to back the Hawks, is going for Freo. Ryan Crowley is assuming Ablett-like powers since his last game. This is just weird.



Thursday 25 September – The Footy Show

The Footy Show is as much a part of Grand Final week as an office handball competition, but even less likely to hit the bulls-eye. I turn over to ‘Would I Lie to You’ on the ABC, wondering if perhaps it’s another Mike Sheahan vehicle, but no it’s a BBC panel show. Funnier of course than the Footy Show, with the added advantage of not featuring a player revue; a cringe-worthy, overblown high school karaoke night with a huge wardrobe budget.

The majority of panellists on the Footy Show also go for Freo (Jonathan Brown being an exception) and the purple haze is being talked up. After all, they’ve beaten Geelong and Sydney! (Of course so did Hawthorn).

Ryan Crowley by now is better than Gary Ablett Snr and Jnr combined. I’m beginning to wonder how Freo has lost any matches at all with him in their ranks. I go back and watch the Round 4 clash from Aurora – Crowley barely gets a touch, Ballantyne does nothing special, yet in the Grand Final week commentary they loom larger than Judd and Voss, to say nothing of Hodge, Mitchell, Franklin, Roughead et al, who everyone seems to have forgotten will also be playing.

I think it’s a case of the commentariat simply jumping on board with the last thing they saw, which in this case was Fremantle.

History may not necessarily repeat, but you can sometimes draw comfort from it. I recall in 1983 and 1988 when Essendon and Melbourne respectively won their way through to play Hawthorn in the Grand Final. Neither had been to the Grand Final for many years and both had powered though the finals from the Elimination. By Grand Final week, everyone had forgotten Hawthorn was even in it – let alone that we’d got there first by being consistently better all season. We duly defeated them by 83 and 96 points respectively.


Friday 26 September – The Grand Final parade

Buddy's solo parade

The kids join me at work and we wander up to the top of Spring Street for the parade. The Freo fans have turned the town purple as the week's worn on and are out in force today, droning their monotonous and annoying Freeeoooh…Freeeooh…Freeeooh chant. They seem unusually brash and confident for supporters of a team that’s never made it before, and has only just brushed off its ‘laughing stock’ reputation. Perhaps they’re just excited to be here, and why not. We are. Or they're trying to justify the thousands of dollars they had to spend to get here. After all, it could be a long trip home via Singapore. Hopefully they can pick some duty free bargains to make it worth their while.

Hawks fans, on the other hand, just seem happy to be enjoying some rare Melbourne sunshine.

The Hawks boys look relaxed and ready. Buddy and Gibbo are among the last to chug up the hill – perhaps they stopped off at a couple of Collins Street boutiques on the way to pick up some accessories. They also seem to have acquired some children along the way – acquired or sired, one or the other.

Friday night it’s Grand Final eve drinks with Chan-Tha. We go to Cabinet, an upstairs bar with a laneway entry, hidden enough that the ubiquitous Freo fans won’t find it.


Saturday 28 September – Grand final day dawns

I mean that literally. As an MCC member I had to queue, having missed out on the reserved seat ballot, so I was there well before dawn. I arrived in Yarra Park at around 2.45am, around 12 hours to the bounce, and was one of several hundred shadowy figures lurking between the trees.

Queuing before dawn at the G is one of the curious rites of spring in Melbourne.  There’s a sense of restlessness as people uncork thermoses and whisper in hushed tones, settle under makeshift canopies or doze uneasily on camp chairs while they wait for dawn.  It’s dark so you can’t make out features. Even those whose faces are illuminated by the mini-stage lighting of iPads and Kindles are hidden beneath beanies, scarves and balaclavas.

I was without a chair but lucked-in when the bloke behind me took his car back home and left me his seat for a few hours. Happily there was no rain, but around 4am as the cold kicks in as the earth turns towards dawn.

The MCC offers coffee- it’s instant and the water lukewarm, but the task of getting it is at least a distraction. As the light lifts you can make out the faces of the people you’ve been talking to. I’m reassured that other Hawthorn fans are equally baffled by the surge in support for Fremantle.

By 7am, one hour before the gates open, there’s the bustle of movement as people fold tarps and rugs, dismantle tents and gather cushions and pillows to return them to cars. There’s a sense of an army getting ready for battle, a sense heightened when the makeshift borders are taken down and we begin to shuffle forward, and I hear the cry of “once more over the breach!”

The queue is 15 across and stretches right back to top of the gardens and around the corner. I’m near the front and see Craig Hutchinson taking a photo of the queue he doesn’t have to join. There’s one Fremantle fan in the queue who has been interviewed by at least three different TV stations – he’ll have his own show by the time the match starts.

Finally the gates open at 8am and I secure a fantastic spot in the front row on Level 2 of the MCC Members stand.  I’ll have an unimpeded panoramic view of everything; that’s assuming I can stay awake.

Once you’ve got your seat you can leave, so I meet my brother for our now traditional Grand Final breakfast at Il Solito Posto in a laneway off Collins Street. The owner is pleased to see some brown and gold in the room and our order for beers at 11am is greeted with cheers from the kitchen – the first beers of the day. Grand Final day is here…

The Rite of Spring 

Ball!

The Grand Final is colloquially known as The Big Dance. It’s unclear why, but perhaps because, like the high school social, there’s the prospect of ‘picking up’ at the end of it. Particularly if you’re on the winning team. Whatever the origin of the saying, we were certainly hoping to see Cyril and Buddy bust some moves.

In 2013 the reference to the ‘big dance’ perhaps has more resonance because it is the 100th anniversary of the first performance of The Rite of Spring, the famous ballet by Igor Stravinsky and Vaslav Nijinsky.

The Rite of Spring celebrates in music and dance the pagan rituals of spring; which in Melbourne in September can only mean the Grand Final.

In the ballet the performers embark on a series of dances that symbolise them becoming one with the earth and giving thanks for its bounty. There is a dance called the ‘Ritual of the Rival Tribes’, which carries a clear Grand Final theme of the opposing fans coming together. This dance is followed by ‘Procession of the Sage’ during which Hawthorn takes the field.

In the second half there is a dance called ‘Mystic Circles of the Young Girls’, which is presumably set later in the night.  In ‘Evocation of the Ancestors’ ageing Hawthorn fans like me dance out tales about the glory days of the 80s – that bit goes for awhile – while ‘Glorification of the Chosen One’ sees Brian Lake take centre stage for a dynamic solo.

The ballet concludes with the ‘Sacrificial Dance’ in which the chosen girl dances herself to death as a sacrifice to the pagan Gods, a clear symbol of the exertion, endeavour and determination the Hawks displayed, their preparedness to ‘pay the price’ as Allan Jeans might have had it.

The opening performance of The Rite of Spring was greeted with a hostile reception from the audience – heckling, jeering, booing, not unlike the reception Hawthorn fans were able to give Crowley and Ballantyne after their debut Grand final performance.

Of course The Rite of Spring is most famous for the music, now a staple of the classical repertoire, it is synonymous with bold invention and wild experimentation, much like Clarko’s game plan, or Cyril paddling the ball though a pack.

However, if we were to tell the story of the Grand Final in song, there’s only one song that can really encapsulate the day, and that is of course the Hawthorn theme song.  Cue the trad-jazz quartet, the banjo player and get ready for the trumpet solo.


We’re a happy team at Hawthorn

Well ‘happy’ isn’t the word – more like delirious. I wept, I quaffed Veuve Cliquot, I hugged grown men I’ve never met before, and this is without even activating my Grindr app.

We’re the mighty fighting Hawks

The game was tough and rugged and this was no more exemplified than after 5 minutes when it was 5 tackles to zero (our way).  And after Mitchell went down twice in the first quarter, Buddy put Crowley down, once illegally for which he was penalised, but on another occasion he hip and shouldered Crowley as he took possession and sent him sprawling. Cyril laid several crunching tackles and in one memorable passage Hawthorn just muscled the ball forward without taking possession, until eventually winning a free kick.

Despite what the pundits thought, Hawthorn’s tackling was fiercer and stronger and we were exerting such pressure that Freo simply wasn’t getting any clean disposals and were duffing those they did.

We love our club

I love Hawthorn more than ever after Saturday’s win. And it’s a love that borders on the irrational, perhaps even the unnatural, and quite possibly the illegal in some states, but it’s a love nonetheless.

As I’ve pointed out earlier in this blog, most football fans are more likely to be unfaithful to their partners than to their football teams. While I could never support any team other than Hawthorn, I’d welcome it if Rihanna wanted to push me to the ground and strut up and down my spine in her heels.

Of course as events today are proving, it doesn’t always work the same for players.  Buddy Franklin is set to accept an offer from the Sydney Swans. Buddy, it seems, wants to get out of Melbourne so he can live his life without his every move being reported in the media. Fair enough. Perhaps you have to have been subjected to those sorts of constraints before you can appreciate what it is like. I mean how often can you walk out your door to find Damo, Hutchy or me rifling through your bin before you get sick of it?

It does seem, however, that Sydney simply doesn’t have a salary cap. How the AFL can continue with a system that is so clearly being rorted defies understanding.  If you were to pick a song for how Hawk fans feel upon hearing this news, you might go for Dylan's 'It's Alright Ma, I'm Only Bleeding' and the line, "Money doesn't talk, it swears".

Of course I’ll always wish the best for Buddy, but I don’t care if the Sydney Swans send themselves broke and rot at the bottom of the ladder for several years.

And of course now I’ve got to change all my passwords and get the giant 23 tattoo removed from my back, unless we can hand the number on to someone equally fabulous. Sam Grimley perhaps?

And we play to win

This is really where Hawthorn differentiates itself from Fremantle, because we try to win by moving the ball forwards and kicking goals. Simple really. It’s less clear how Fremantle hope to win big games with all their players packed into the opposition’s 50 metre arc. Brian Lake was able to take mark after mark, particularly in the final quarter, as there were no Freo players up forward to stop him.

Preventing the opposition from scoring is indeed part of the puzzle and Fremantle excels in this, but at some point you have to try and score yourself, and that seems to be the bit they haven’t quite figured out yet.

Ross Lyon has now had teams in four Grand Finals and the biggest tally of goals any of them have kicked is 10. You don’t win many fans with such a game plan, but you’re even less likely to win a Grand Final with 10 goals.

Riding the bumps with a grin, at Hawthorn

Riding the bumps – Mitchell took plenty, Buddy running back into an oncoming Mayne, the match was full of heroic acts. When I hear this line of the song, I think not only of the hits and bumps we absorbed in the Grand Final, and there were plenty, but of Brendon Whitecross. Two years in succession he’s injured his knee in the finals and missed the Grand Final, yet he has only ever shown a relaxed and philosophical, even positive outlook.

When the siren went on Saturday he was one of the first out on the ground, (well, perhaps not the first given that he was on crutches) to hug his replacement Jonathan Simpkin.

Of course he might do well to change his name from a well-known instrument of sacrifice to something less tempting to fate – something warmer and more nurturing, like Whitekitten or Whitewomb.

Come what may you’ll find us striving

In the third quarter when Fremantle were charging at us and getting on top, the Hawks kept going and bustled their way back into it. It was claustrophobic and stifling in the packs, but the Hawks held on and scored key goals at crucial moments – none more so than when Hill got it to Gunston who snapped from the goal square to put us 10 points in front.

Shiels and Gibbo collided effecting a spoil, but Birchall was there, leaping a prone Shiels as he gathered the ball, firing off a handball that started a chain to Stratton, back to Gibbo, over to Lewis and then to Hale just as the siren sounded.

It’s not a battle unless there’s a chance the result could go either way, and the third quarter proved to be pivotal. Hawthorn absorbed Freo’s best shots and then fired their own. In Paradise Regained Christ triumphs over Satan, but the tale has no moral substance unless there was a chance he might not.  Come what may…

Teamwork is the thing that talks…4, 3, 2

In the second quarter, Mitchell tackled Crowley to dispossess him. Buddy charged forward to grab the ball, handballed immediately to an oncoming Cyril who passed to Gunston to run in and kick a goal from 50.

Not long after this incident, Ballantyne marked 35 metres out. He could have passed quickly to Walters who had cruised into the goal square by himself, but decided to take the kick himself…which he duly duffed.

That was the difference - the Hawks worked with and for each other all day. Fremantle’s much vaunted defence was beaten by Hawthorn’s even better defence. Lake, Gibson, Stratton, Guerra, Hodge and Birchall combined beautifully all day.

One for all and all for one is the way we play at Hawthorn

Much has been made of Mitchell being held by Crowley, and while he may not have won as many possessions as usual, he was in everything. In the final quarter in quick succession he upended both Fyfe and Johnson as they were each about to shoot towards goal. No possessions, but two match saving acts.

The Poo didn’t have many clean possessions, but in the final quarter he fought and fought to keep the ball in our forward pocket, holding off three Fremantle defenders in a gang tackle. Moments later he kicked the ball forward for Hill to run onto it and kick the sealer.

As the statistics show, Hawthorn had a very even spread of possession winners across the team, showing that this was a collective effort. Lake and Gunston stood out at either end, but only because of the hard work from those in between.

We are the mighty fighting Hawks!

We are indeed mighty – a team that has been hand crafted to meet our own unique needs. Burgoyne, Guerra, Gibson, Gunston, Hale, Simpkin and Lake  - all brought in from other clubs to play particular roles. In the argot of today, Hawthorn is truly a bespoke team.

And talking of fighting Hawks, some observers questioned the recruitment of Brian Lake to Hawthorn, particularly after he and his wife were arrested in Sorrento over summer. Okay,it was just me, but I did add the caveat that – see post from 30 March – “Of course it could be that both Brian and his better half are bringing to the club just the ruthless ‘no-holds-barred’ attitude that we need to succeed. In any case, I’ll happily eat my words, when they drape the Norm Smith medal around his neck later this year.”

Consider those words eaten and digested.

Trumpet solo….bridge

Repeat 

The day after
left to right: Florine, Pete, Chan-Tha, Phillip and Oscar

Iconic moments  

There’s been a chorus of complaint from various commentators about the quality of the game. Apparently it wasn’t as spectacular as it could have been. These are the same journalists that during the week talked up Fremantle as likely premiers, completely forgetting that they play an uber-defensive game based on no one scoring. It’s a game plan that even Italian soccer would be embarrassed by. So I’m not sure what sort of spectacle these people were expecting.

Rohan Connolly, Martin Flanagan and Hutchy were just a few who moaned that there were no ‘iconic’ moments in the match. Let’s ignore for the moment that ‘iconic’ is the most overused and misused word in Australian media, (along with ‘bespoke’ which I also made a point of using earlier) and simply apologise for this terrible oversight. Sorry fellas – take the cup away rom us if you must. We didn’t realise that the entire season of hard work and effort needed to also produce one particular incident that would look suitably dramatic when replayed ad-fucking-nauseum in super slo-mo for almost all of 2014.

But no iconic moments? I beg to differ. What about Isaac Smith’s 60 metre goal in the final quarter? Luke Breust bursting from the pack moments later to kick another, Ben Stratton running down Ryan Crowley as he closed in on goal, Cyril’s tackles, Gunston trapping the ball in the goal square late in the third and squeezing through his fourth for the match to give us a decisive edge at ¾ time. Need I go on? I will then.

Nat Fyfe’s three set shots that resulted in one behind and two out on the full. Suban and Pavlich missing easy set shots, MacPharlane overstepping the mark when Buddy was lining up. And then there’s little Hayden Ballantyne’s highlights package – dropping a chest mark 50 metres out from goal, slipping over in the middle of the ground, not giving off to Walters who was by himself in the goal square, missing a set shot from 20 metres when the game was on the line, following up a few minutes later by missing one on the run – all this from the man who was supposedly going to be the difference – well he was, just not in the way he intended.

All of these are iconic moments worthy of replay on an endless loop. We're a happy team at Hawthorn...


Final scores: Hawthorn 11  11  77  d  Fremantle 8  14  62.


What we learned: The cultural cringe is still alive and well. While Hunters & Collectors provided the half-time entertainment, the Birds of Tokyo played pre-match. I mean why do we need to import these big bands from Japan to play on our special day?

I also heard that Rihanna, who is in Australia at the moment, expressed interest in performing at the Grand Final. How good would that be? Sometimes getting the big international act isn’t cultural cringe – it’s just getting the big act. Rihanna would bring sass and near nudity to the occasion, and given that she’s been receiving poor reviews for lip-synching, being drunk on stage and slurring her words (I don’t know how you can do both, but anyway), she sounds like a perfect fit for the Grand Final. Oh well, another missed opportunity.


What we already knew: You can take the boy out of Colac…but you can’t take Colac out of the boy. In his post-match speech, Luke Hodge tried to console the Freo boys, saying, "We know exactly how youse feel". You might excuse him for trying to use language he knew the players would understand, except that this is the second year in a row he's used 'youse' as a collective pronoun.

'Cheers...Go Hawks'

Post-script: For two years Twenty3 has tracked every Hawthorn game and each tidbit of Hawthorn gossip, but now that we've won the flag there really is nothing more to say. Life has turned full circle, the cosmos is correctly aligned etc. But also, with Buddy leaving, the number 23 is losing some of its lustre and much of its meaning. With that Twenty3 is going to lose itself in a post premiership fog of Veuve, Hawthorn Pale Ale and season highlights.