Round 5 - Geelong v Hawthorn

MCG, Monday 21 April 2014

Football Royalty

The Royal Tour continues to make its way inland with William, Kate and baby Prince George touring through Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, Adelaide and Uluru.  The fact that they are not visiting in Melbourne is being seen in many circles as a snub, but with Hawthorn scheduled to play Geelong on Easter Monday, we had our own footy royalty in town. Between the two teams, that’s 10 or 12 of the best footballers in the country on the same field at the same time, and with Geelong’s Jimmy Bartel among them, there’s even someone as cute as the baby Prince.

You’ll note that aside from Adelaide, they are only visiting rugby cities, which simply confirms their lack of understanding of Australian culture and underlines the urgent need for us to become a republic. I saw footage of the couple at a rugby match, and it wasn’t hard to spot them in a crowd of about 500 people who are interested enough to watch rugby, unlike the droves that turn up to watch now traditional Easter Monday clash between the Hawks and the Cats.

As for the game it was nothing unexpected, at least as far as the result went, as again, we didn’t get the chocolates.

Football Royalty

WALKER!

Now I don’t want to be picky, but isn’t there a rule that dictates that only players who are named in the starting line-up can actually take the field? I know there’s a cut-off point, whether it is an hour before the bounce or 15 minutes I don’t know, but surely you can’t just bring on some new bloke for the final quarter.  Well that’s what Geelong did - some bloke wearing number 34 with the name ‘Walker’ stencilled across the back was pulling down marks and slotting goals from everywhere in the final quarter. Kyle Cheney battled well against Tom Hawkins for the first three quarters, but all of a sudden he had a new opponent with whom he was less able to quell.

Based on this I’ve been assuming that the AFL would reverse the result on a technicality - not that we necessarily want to win that way, but it might be the only way we can beat Geelong in a Home & Away game.

It transpired that ‘Walker’ was indeed Hawkins. He simply required a change of guernsey after Wil Langford ripped the original in a wardrobe malfunction incident similar to Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson - with the probable exception that people were less keen to see Hawkins’ exposed breast than Ms Jackson’s.

Magical Realism

The literary world was saddened during the week by the death of Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the father of ‘magical realism’.

Magical realism is a literary genre in which fantastical elements are introduced into a mundane, realistic environment in such a way that they appear perfectly natural. Characters, and by extension the audience, accept as normal magical events such as telepathy, levitation and telekinesis - sort of like watching Cyril Rioli tapping the ball through a pack of players and emerging on the other side with ball in hand to kick a goal.

The magical-realist world is an environment where the natural and the supernatural co-exist as equals. Marquez’s most well-known book, and arguably, the seminal work of magical realism is One Hundred Years of Solitude, which may sound like the story of the Western Bulldogs, but is not nearly so depressing.

Marquez’s death wasn’t an event that had football teams donning black armbands of respect, but I was hoping that the likes of Rioli, Suckling and Breust might add a magical overlay to the gritty realism provided by Mitchell, Hodge and Lewis in the centre.

As we now know, that didn’t come to pass, but it was a game that had a sprinkling of magical-realism aspects - Hawthorn’s outfit for a start. Dressing up big, rugged footballers in gold tops, white shorts and gold socks is an ensemble that even Marquez didn’t think would wash with the reading public.
There was a nice novelistic touch when Travis Varcoe kicked the first goal of the game from about the same distance as the shot he missed to tie the scores in the 2013 Preliminary final. Then there was the strange case of hapless Hawkins transforming himself into match-winner Walker simply by changing jumpers - and seemingly identity - at three quarter time. This scene could even have come from a magical-realist text; take a hulking duffer with a foppish hair style, give him a new jumper with someone else’s name on it and all of a sudden he turns into a gifted, athletic sharp-shooter.

Beyond these elements though, the match was almost noteworthy for lacking much magic at all. Cyril Rioli had only a handful of disposals; Matthew Suckling, the best kick in the competition, completely duffed his first three, even Brad Hill got caught with the ball. It was that sort of match: tough, intense and bruising. Geelong’s mercurial Stevie Johnson was best on ground, but even his performance owed more to gritty realism and doing normal things well than relying on his trademark magical touches.

Geelong seemed to hold the edge for much of the match and remained marginally in front throughout. They were a little more assured with the ball, they tackled well and blanketed Hawthorn’s potential match winners Rioli and Roughead. They also took a succession of strong contested marks throughout the game.  I even found myself involuntarily applauding some of them.

Despite this, Hawthorn was still within striking distance at the final break. Indeed, when Breust and Gunston kicked the opening goals of the final quarter, we were in front.  Gunston had another set shot minutes later to give us an even six point lead…but missed. And with that went our chances, as Geelong added three goals in the next five minutes to effectively end the match. Mitch Hallahan, playing his first game for Hawthorn and wearing no. 38 (the same number, incidentally, that Buddy wore when he first played), came on as a sub in the final quarter and even kicked a consolation goal towards the end of the game.

In the end a 19 point margin pretty much reflected the difference in the teams on the day. Observing the game in hindsight, most commentators agreed that Alastair Clarkson should have moved Cheney from Hawkins, given that Hawkins’ final quarter tally was pretty much the final margin, but the reality is that at three quarter time, Hawkins had just 2 goals and Cheney was playing quite well. Besides, to move him would have simply meant he would need to man someone even taller. Basically, with Brian Lake, Matt Spangher and Ryan Schoenamakers out injured, we were just lacking a tall defender. Even so, I thought young defender Taylor Duryea played one of his best games for the Hawks.



Final scores: Geelong 15 16 106 d Hawthorn 12 15 87

Ladder position - 3rd

Attendance 80,222



What we learned: that Julie Bishop is channelling Lady Di. Our Foreign Minister was waiting on the tarmac to greet the royal couple when they arrived in Canberra, and although I can’t lip-read, I can only assume that her subservient tittering was all part of her telling William about how she has kept alive his mother’s hair style for the past 25 years.

  

What we always knew: orange fluro boots and plain gold socks make as hideous a combination as you might expect. Add in white shorts and the all-gold back of the jumper and you have one of our least attractive outfits. There was a reason we brought back the hoops on our hose and the stripes on the back of the jumper – they look better. Hawthorn’s decision to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1988/89 back-to-back premierships by wearing the kit worn in the 80s days would have made more sense on a day when we were wearing brown shorts, as indeed we wore for both of those Grand Finals.

What we’re resorting to: Hawthorn’s desperation to defeat Geelong has reached alarming levels. My Hawk friend Jason pointed out to me a pre-match article on hawthorn.com titled, “Guns added to squad for Easter Monday.” Guns! I know we need all the armaments we can get, but isn’t that taking it a little too far?


Why we should be thankful for Geelong: Our inability to defeat Geelong annoys me as much as anyone. Naturally enough I transmute this exasperation into utter hatred for all things Geelong. It’s nothing personal; it’s just the way it is. In my more objective moments, however, I express secret gratitude for Geelong. Remember what football was like in 2005 and 2006, with the Swans and the Eagles turning every match into an exercise in backline flooding – when 10 goals would win you most games – when Paul Roos, Ross Lyon and John Worsfold tried to bore their way to premierships. It was only thanks to Geelong’s relentless play-on game that brought skill and athleticism back to the game. We’d be watching virtual rugby by now if it wasn’t for Mark Thompson and the great Geelong team of 2007.



Good Friday football: One of the great traditions on the AFL calendar is the annual Easter debate over whether there should be football scheduled on Good Friday.  The debate has heated up this year with Andrew Demetriou, a long-time opponent of Good Friday football, announcing that he is stepping down at the end of the season.

The clubs seem to have picked up the Sherrin shaped Easter egg and run with it. Club chairpersons and presidents are all busy bickering among themselves about which clubs should host football on this day.

As a non-practicing Christian, okay atheist then, and only casual donor to the Royal Children’s Hospital Good Friday appeal, I personally don’t care whether football is played or not played on Good Friday. I have no religious sensibilities to offend and can’t see how a game of football could adversely impact the annual hospital appeal. On a weekend with three days of football already – effectively four given that a match is scheduled for the Thursday night before Good Friday – I can take or leave footy on one day of a four day weekend.  I don’t care whether they play a match or not, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have an opinion about who should and shouldn’t play.

James Brayshaw from North Melbourne is at the forefront of the push for football on Good Friday and seems to believe that North has some pre-ordained right to host a match on this day. He has tied his argument to the Good Friday appeal, saying that because the Royal Children’s hospital is located in Flemington, which is sort of between North Melbourne and Carlton, then it stands to reason that North should play Carlton on that day. So there’s a geographical imperative apparently. In the next breath he talked about the need for big clubs to play on that day, which essentially rules out North Melbourne anyway, given their modest membership base. North Melbourne’s Easter Saturday clash with Collingwood this week, the biggest drawing club in the competition, attracted a crowd of just 57,116 people. Based on that, I can’t imagine why he thinks North v Carlton would get more than 30,000 on Good Friday.

With 18 teams who could potentially play each other on that day, there are 162 possible combinations the AFL could schedule. Of those 162, you could argue that North Melbourne and Carlton, two teams who last troubled the top four at the same time somewhere around the turn of the century, would be among the least attractive fixtures from either a crowd or a football perspective.

Of course no argument about blockbuster fixturing is complete without Eddie McGuire weighing in. He too is calling for big clubs to play and unsurprisingly sees Collingwood as a natural fit. After all, they only have ANZAC Day and the Queen’s Birthday set aside for their matches, so we may as well stick with the theme. Essendon too are claiming rights to Good Friday. Perhaps Collingwood and Essendon could play each other on Good Friday and follow it up a week later with a return clash on ANZAC day?

All of these club presidents only seem to advocate for big Victorian teams? Adelaide is a big club. So is West Coast. Why shouldn’t they play? And is there some reason why it must be the same two teams every year - what would be so wrong with different match-ups, like ANZAC Day used to be.

Age football writer, Caroline Wilson, is on the other side of the argument, using her ‘Arrow’ segment on Footy Classified last week to call for no games to be scheduled on Good Friday because it is “tradition” to not have football on this day. This argument makes even less sense than Brayshaw’s or McGuire’s. Can something be a ‘tradition’ on the basis that it has never happened? Using this logic, it is a tradition that Hawthorn can’t defeat Geelong in a Home & Away game, but hey, we just might one day.

Round 4 - Gold Coast Suns v Hawthorn

Hawthorn Beach Party 

Round 4
Gold Coast v Hawthorn
Metricon Stadium, Saturday 12 April

The Hawks were off to the Gold Coast to play the Suns and although I couldn’t attend the match, I did my best to simulate the experience by going to Tootgarook on the Mornington Peninsula for the weekend. Sure the gentle lapping wavelets in Port Phillip Bay didn’t quite match the curling pipelines and majestic breakers of Surfers Paradise. Nor did the creaking Ghost Train and stalled dodgem cars of the Rye Foreshore funfair rival the thrill seeking exhilaration of Gold Coast’s Worlds. But to be honest, I’m not much of a beach person and I get a bit scared on fast rides, so I was quite happy just to take it easy and watch the game on television.

Showing a distinct lack of foresight, in describing Hawthorn’s commanding victory over Fremantle the previous week, I drew an analogy of Hawthorn cutting through Fremantle’s defensive flood like a team of uber cool goofy footing surfer dudes on boards. I even compared Hawthorn to bronzed skegs and cast Fremantle as our skeg molls whose sole reason for being was to wax our boards and fetch us Chiko Rolls. It seemed to fit the bill at the time, but a quick glance at the fixture in advance would have told me that I should hold back on the surfing analogy until this weeks’ game against the Suns on the Gold Coast.

So the problem is that I went a week too soon with the surfing analogy and it’s left me with nowhere to go this week. I used up my best stuff too early. Much like the Suns in this match actually. When Channel 7 ran its ‘Best Stuff’ anthology of weekend footy highlights the next day, the only bits from the Hawthorn v Suns game that made the cut were Jaeger O’Meara’s goal – the opening goal of the game – and Sam Day’s mark, both of which happened in the first five minutes. The Suns barely rated a highlight after that, but anyone watching this Channel 7 highlights package alone might have thought they’d won.

I thought it was bit rough that none of Hawthorn’s 23 goals were deemed worthy enough to make the package – not even Gunston’s soccer volley from the line between the goal and point posts – but perhaps I’m just being picky and parochial.

Anyway, having used the surfing analogy last week, I’ve been casting about for another theme associated with the Gold Coast to add colour to my description of the match. Theme park rides presented an obvious possibility, but this fell down due to how the match panned out. A roller coaster, for example, might be a useful analogy for a match in which fortunes fluctuated, where a team struggled through tough periods akin to climbing a steep incline, only to then hit the peak and race away with a burst of exhilarating, hair-raising speed, before again encountering a tight angle or another slow climb. But such a description has no relation to what transpired in this match. Basically the Hawks hit the first ascent quickly and then the carriage simply took off in a thrilling, adrenaline-charged rush of sustained speed and regular goals that lasted until the end of the match. No such roller coaster exists in which there is only one short climb at the beginning, followed by a long, uninterrupted flight to the finish.

Without surfing and theme parks to work with, the only other cultural event synonymous with the Gold Coast on which I might draw is schoolies week, and although Hawthorn wore tight, white shorts, glistened in the heat and played with liberal ease, free from any sort of restraint, I think that’s where any sort of analogy might end. For a start I can’t explain the love-bites or vomiting, and even footballers on end-of-season trips don’t behave with the wanton and outlandish destructiveness of schoolies with fizzing hormones and electrified libidos – well except for Campbell Brown perhaps, and the Suns had ended his career after just such an exhibition in LA over summer.

So free from any form of artificial scaffolding then, we can just get on with the looking at the match.

Sun block

The Suns started brightly and O’Meara kicked a good goal after winning the ball from Matt Spangher, but then the Hawks piled them on: Gunston, Roughead, and Sam Mitchell. From one centre bounce Mitchell won the ball, handballed to Rough who banged it long where Cyril took a great mark and goaled. It was a perfect illustration of how simple footy can be once you stop banging on about game plans, pressure acts, structures and set plays. Of course it helped that Mitchell, Roughead and Cyril were involved.

The first quarter was relatively even, although watching it you felt the Hawks always had the edge and seemed to be pacing themselves. Even so, at 6.4 to 4.4, the commentary team of BT, Darce, Richo and Lingy were not entirely out of place talking up the Suns’ chances.  

The second quarter was bookended by Gunston’s miraculous volley goal from an improbable, if not impossible, angle at the start of the quarter, and just before half-time, a trademark Matt Suckling left-foot kick that tracked low and fast like tracer fire to land right on the goal line. Perfect. Two kicks that might have scored nothing from lesser feet had helped give the Hawks a decisive break.

At half-time the commentary team were still peddling the official line that the match was anyone’s to win, but with the score at 11.7 to 6.4, their optimism seemed to have less of a solid foundation.
Darce piped in at one point to say that the Suns would be right back in this match if they were to string together four or five goals in a row. Which was true to a point, but given they’d barely strung together four to five passes in a row during the second quarter, it seemed more of a hopeful comment than one based on any sort of empirical data. It was a bit like observing that if mankind stopped using fossil fuels we might be able to reverse the effects of global warming. Yes, we might, but we won’t.

Then within the first minute of the third quarter, when Breust gave off an impossibly slick handball to Gunston in the goal square, any thought of a Suns revival was looking a bit delusional. The Hawks at this point seemed to grow weary of trying to score, and given the Suns couldn’t, the match entered a period of stasis. There was a long 15 minutes or so when neither side scored a goal until Brad Hill and Breust banged on two in quick succession.

Premature speculation

Such was the inaction that towards the end of the third quarter, Darce dared to wonder aloud if Hawthorn might go through the entire season undefeated. He even set up a viewer’s poll. Um, Darce, it’s Round 4 – there were still 18 games to go – including Geelong the following week. Now I know I can get ahead of myself sometimes with my Hawthorn fantasies – I’ve already suggested that we may as well leave the temporary flag pole standing at the MCG because we’ll be needing to unfurl another premiership pennant this time next season – but even I haven’t run ahead to that absurd degree. As far as fantasies go, there’s nearly as much chance of Hawthorn enjoying an undefeated season as there is of me participating in a three-way with The Block Twins, or with and Taylor Duryea. Did I say Duryea? Sorry, I meant Swift. Of the two options I’m not certain which has the more erotic appeal.

Roughead (twice), Jonathan Simpkin, Liam Shiels and Gunston - for his fifth - all goaled in a short space of time in the final quarter to keep themselves, and us, interested. The only matters of intrigue remaining were the final margin and which Hawthorn players had been best. In the end it was 99 points and I plumped for Mitchell, Lewis, Gunston, Burgoyne and Hill. It was another strong team performance and our undersized makeshift backline with Kyle Cheney and Taylor Duryea again played strongly.

Sometimes you don’t need to draw on analogy to illustrate an event or give it meaning; sometimes the raw spectacle is enough. And on this occasion watching Hawthorn in full flight was every bit as exciting and spine-tingling as riding a wave or a theme park ride. Nearly as good as schoolies week.


Final scores: Hawthorn 23. 10. 148  d  Gold Coast 7. 7. 49


What we learned: Brian Taylor, the man who gave us “BIG BASTARD GOAL!” when Isaac Smith steered through his 75 metre bomb in last year’s Grand Final came through with the goods again – this time coining the phrase “a dearth of depth” to describe Hawthorn’s seemingly ongoing talent pool. Intoned with the right amount of menace it sounds like an instrument of torture or a hardcore metal band.

Not to rest there, during the discussion on whether Hawthorn could go through the season undefeated, he said of our match against Geelong next week, “If we assume they get over that…” Now I know we defeated them last time we played, but given it was by only 5 points, and that we hadn’t beaten them on the 11 preceding occasions, it’s a bit like assuming that the Ukraine will hold off Russia’s evil empire.

What we already knew: Much was made before the game of the match up between Gary Ablett Jnr and Wil Langford, mirroring the famous match-ups between their respective fathers, Gary Snr and Chris in the 1980s and 1990s. Unsurprisingly perhaps, this contemporary head to head battle between Ablett, the best player in the AFL and Langford, playing in just his fourth game, was in no way reminiscent of the battles of their famous forbears, except perhaps that what the Langford genes may lack in natural football talent by comparison to the Ablett genes, they make up for it in the hair stakes.

Elsewhere: Carlton’s loss to lowly Melbourne, leaving them 0-4, and in a trough of self-reflection and recrimination has united the rest of the footy public in good cheer and bonhomie, in the same way that the United Nations must snigger as one when the USA creeps home in abject defeat from a foreign theatre of war.

Round 3 - Hawthorn v Fremantle

Hawthorn's Covenant

Round 3
Hawthorn v Fremantle
MCG, Friday 4 April 2014

The Great Freo Flood

Fremantle's defence takes position

In the trailer for the blockbuster movie epic, Noah, Russell Crowe intones in his deep sonorous voice that, “A great flood is coming”.  He might have been referring to Ross Lyon and Fremantle’s game plan as much as some form of divine retribution for earthly sins. For Fremantle’s much vaunted defence had been to the fore in its opening two games against Collingwood and Gold Coast, conceding only five goals in each.

But if Fremantle brought the flood, then Hawthorn brought their boards and simply surfed through the swell with its goofy footers hanging ten, gnarling, or whatever terms are current in surfie culture for easy command of the water. Freo meanwhile, was reduced to waxing our boards and procuring Chiko rolls for the Hawthorn skegs, such was our superiority. They were simply our skeg molls.

Mad Calf 

The scourge of Hawthorn

This is the second year in succession the Hawks have played a Grand Final rematch, and whereas last year against Sydney we had something to prove, this year, all of that angst and pressure was on Fremantle.

In the lead up to the match, some of the inevitable comparisons to the Grand Final dissipated due the large number of team changes on both sides. Hawthorn was missing seven players from the Grand Final side – essentially a third of the team – either through retirement, defection, suspension or injury. For this match Luke Hodge, Brad Sewell, Ben Stratton and Brian Lake were still out plus there was news before the bounce that Ben McEvoy was a late withdrawal with a calf complaint.

Calf soreness was said to also be hampering Brian Lake, and it had also kept Mitchell out of the previous game against Essendon. I was beginning to wonder why this plague had struck. Is there some sort of degenerative and contagious calf complaint sweeping through the club? Mad Calf disease perhaps?

Fremantle was also missing important players, Michael Barlow through injury, and Zac Dawson and Nat Fyfe through suspension. Fyfe’s suspension for a head clash with Gold Coast player Michael Rischetelli became the talking point and something of a controversy. Fyfe had bumped instead of tackled and had accidentally clashed heads with Rischetelli. As we know if you bump and make contact with the head, it’s an automatic suspension. It’s not a new rule – it’s no different to North’s Jack Ziebell last year or Buddy’s bump on Ben Cousins a few years ago. The only difference this time is that a number of media commentators clearly had money on Fyfe for the Brownlow and were miffed that they’d blown it.

It was no surprise that Dennis Cometti’s opening salvo on Channel 7’s telecast was a tirade against this rule and Fyfe’s suspension. I don’t recall him lambasting the AFL in this way over any other incident or rule, but dare remove one of the best players from a WA team and you’ll be subjected to the wrath of Dennis.

Personally, I agreed, but I also wasn’t too disappointed that Fyfe wasn’t playing.

Not only were there a number of personnel changes on the ground, but there were also some unexpected people lining up in the stands. Unusually, I was joined by my whole family. My eldest son Oscar was with me as normal, but making a surprise guest appearance was youngest son Declan, and even more bizarrely, my wife Angela. I think this was her first game since the 2008 Preliminary Final. We arrived just before the bounce, so I hadn’t heard the team news to this point, but her presence at the ground was still a bigger surprise than Jonathan Ceglar, who was in to replace McEvoy.

Like Noah before the flood, I was keeping my family together.

The Pantheon of Perfection

- Les Demoiselles d’Avignon by Picasso
- The Boatman’s Call by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
- The Beckett Trilogy
- Scarlett Johanssen’s face
- Rodin’s The Kiss
- The 2008 Grand Final
- Withnail and I
- Usain Bolt over 100 metres
- Leonard Cohen in concert
- Antony Sher’s Richard III

As beautiful as Hawthorn

This is a list of things I consider to be impeccable - my personal pantheon of perfection if you like. And you can now add to this list Hawthorn’s first half display against Fremantle on Friday night.

It was as flawless a display as you’re likely to get in a game involving 36 combatants, one of which is Kyle Cheney, a vast playing surface and a ball with an unpredictable bounce – and even that was going our way.

Hawthorn players gathered the ball cleanly in the open or in congested contests, backed-up their team mates, ran to space to present as options for the ball-carrier, and excelled in spoling, shepherding, precision passing, tap-ons and polished finishing. If you’d asked them to bring harmony to the Ukraine or reverse the effects of climate change they might just have been able to do it. It was a complete team performance; no better exemplified than our sixth goal just 16 minutes into the match and before the Dockers had even scored.

The Dockers took the ball forward where Hayden Ballantyne kicked to Ryan Crowley in the pocket. Crowley kicked inboard to Stephen Hill only for Spangher to spoil, Shiels gathered, handballed back to a running Spangher who kicked towards the wing where Rioli tapped it to Puopolo, who tapped back to a sprinting Rioli, now metres in the clear, who passed it to Breust, who executed a neat sidestep of Michael Johnson and popped it through. Sixteen minutes in and the score was 37-0.

The quarter had opened with Cyril taking the ball cleanly off a pack and scooting away to kick accurately. Then Roughead passed to Hale who marked and goaled, adding a nice touch to his 200th game. Next Roughead burrowed into a pack, collecting the ball on his way through, and kicked around the corner, with the ball turning so sharply on the bounce that it tumbled through for a goal. The Poo slammed through another goal after taking the ball from a stoppage, and then Birchall got one of his long, high, left footers to curl through.

Hawthorn’s ball movement was so deft and fluid it could have been choreographed by Graeme Murphy. Even the act of describing it in words is to reduce it, even sully it.

Fremantle did eventually score a goal in the first quarter – but only after an act of sympathy from the umpire who paid Matthew Pavlich a mark in the goal square that at least three other players had touched, some of them twice.

So far, so fabulous. I received a text from my friend Jason watching from Birmingham in the UK, commenting on the positive start and asking if it is “Hale-ing” at the G. Indeed it was, although I replied that it is Matt Spangher setting the crowd alight.

Six goals in the first quarter is more than either Collingwood or Gold Coast managed in their respective matches against the Dockers.

And then it all started again. Isaac Smith kicked two goals in the first two minutes of the second quarter, the first after taking a fantastic low slips catch in front of goal – the degree of difficulty heightened significantly by having a Fremantle defender literally grappling him.

The highlight of the second quarter came when Will Langford gathered the ball in the pocket and screwed his kick around his body and it bounced through for his first goal for the Hawks. The occasional Langford goal was always guaranteed to bring Hawks fans to their feet in the 80s, and here we were continuing the tradition with his son. Some things never become boring. At 10 goals to 2, it was officially a rout.

By half-time it was 12.5 to 2.8 and as I sipped my anxiety free Crown lager in the Hugh Trumble Bar at half-time I was mildly surprised we were only 57 points in front.

Fremantle’s two goals had both come from Pavlich, who was playing well, but even he must have been surprised, if not a little insulted, that Kyle Cheney was lining up on him. Significantly shorter in stature and natural talent, Cheney was still playing well, combining with Gibson, Duryea, Birchall and Spangher in defence to repel the occasional Dockers attack. Mitchell, Hill, Smith, Rioli, Lewis, Puopolo, Hale, Gunston, Breust; in fact every Hawthorn player was working hard and playing fast, thrilling football.

In the third quarter, Cyril flew high at the front of a pack to pull down a screamer, landed on the run and dashed around the pack to kick a brilliant goal. This happened right in front of where we were sitting, lending it even greater piquancy. There were more goals, including a two touch soccer goal to Breust, a couple to Gunston and at one point the lead reached 70 points, before the Hawks inevitably began to tire.

The Hawks rested on their laurels in the final quarter; as well they might, and still ran out easy winners by 58 points. We had twelve different goal kickers in the end, and such was the roll call I wouldn’t have been at all surprised had Damian Monkhurst heaved himself off the bench to pop one through.

Angela had been reasonably impressed with the Hawks, if a little bored with the game, but she had thrilled to see Cyril in action. You don’t have to be a football fanatic to recognise the beauty of Cyril in full flight. She seemed mildly surprised, however, when I was watching a recording of the game to hear the commentary team flinging about superlatives.

“Was I witness to something momentous?” she asked naively.

“Yes” I intoned, “nothing less than the dawn of a new type of football.”

"Oh" she said, and went back to her reading.

Noah preserved humanity and the animal kingdom by developing an ambitious sea-faring breeding program. At Hawthorn the work is beginning; we already have Will Langford, son of Chris, on the field, and coming through over the next 20 years or so we have a little Mitchell, Rioli, Hodge, Anderson, Hale, Burgoyne, Lake et al. Perhaps next year’s end of season trip should involve a cruise liner and invite the WAGs.

In the real story of Noah, it is a hawk that plays the key avian role 

Hawthorn 21.11.137  d  Fremantle 11.13.79

Ladder position: 2nd

Attendance: 43,583

Coleman watch: Luke Breust is equal leader with Nick Riewoldt on 10

What we learned: Hawthorn unfurled the 2013 premiership flag at beginning of match (again), and perhaps it’s too early to call it this year, but if the Hawks continue to play like they did on Friday night against the Dockers, then they may as well leave the makeshift flagpole up, because we’ll be coming back to unfurl another one this time next year.

What we already knew: Spanish historians claimed during the week to have located the Holy Grail.  What on earth are they on about, you might ask, for as any Hawks fan could have told them, the Holy Grail is on display at Waverley in Hawthorn’s trophy cabinet.

Hawthorn to Canberra?: I’m not suggesting that the team relocate, but there was news during the week that the ALP is seeking to change its membership rules to increase its current membership level above 44,000. According to hawthornfc.com, Hawthorn’s membership is currently 64,358 – that’s 20,000 more than the ALP and yet they were running the country up until last September. I’m not necessarily advocating a coup, but why stop at premiership domination? Andrew Newbold could be P.M., John Kennedy Snr Governor General, and I’m certain we could find a spot on the front bench, as opposed to the interchange bench, for Dermie and Dunstall.

N.B. Noah's Ark should not be confused with Buddy Franklin's natural arc.

Round 2 - Essendon v Hawthorn

Arise, Sir Cyril

Etihad Stadium, Friday 28 March 2014

Cue hysteria

Prime Minister Tony Abbott reintroduced the imperial honours system this week and although his favourite little love buddy, General Peter Cosgrove, has been awarded the first gong (Tony has a thing for uniforms), I nominate that the next two should be awarded to Shaun Burgoyne and Cyril Rioli for their match winning performances against Essendon on Friday night. Not that a knighthood comes close to what they deserve, but it’s a start.

Of course I imagine that both players would refuse such an irrelevant, outdated honour, particularly in light of the other piece of retrograde legislation the Attorney General, Senator George Brandis, is trying to introduce – the watering down of section 18C of the vilification laws to virtually sanction race hate speech, but sometimes it’s just nice to asked.

Josh Gibson played a great game too, his 150th in fact, but he already has a Peter Crimmins medal and a premiership medal, and both carry far greater prestige than a knighthood from Tony Abbott.

I was watching the match at home with my family. Angela and our youngest son Declan had gone to bed, but knowing the scores were close both had got back up because they knew Oscar and I would be making a racket in the dying minutes – of either the exulted or excruciating variety – and that sleep would be impossible.

Their instinct was right. With just over a minute to go, Isaac Smith soccered the ball forward twice to clear packs, and when Luke Breust got it over to Bradley Hill, I rose from my seat shouting “Come on come on”, then as Hill measured a handball to Rioli, Oscar also rose, and by the time Cyril slammed home the winning goal we were all up and screaming the name Cyyrrrilll! – waking up anyone within a 5km radius. And given we live in Essendon, that made it even more satisfying.

Conscious Uncoupling

The match was billed as a blockbuster, so again you might question why it wasn’t played at the MCG. This is the third year in succession that Hawthorn has played Essendon at Etihad Stadium, and yet the AFL is voicing concerns about crowd numbers. Go figure.

Well I didn’t go to this match precisely because it was at Etihad Stadium. Getting tickets to Essendon home games is virtually impossible, plus if you do happen to get in, you then have to listen to Essendon’s feral fans all night (as opposed to the cultured sophisticates that barrack for Hawthorn).   Again, this match was billed as ’sold out’ despite the numerous empty seats visible on the television coverage. It may sound old fashioned, but my advice to the good people at the AFL and Etihad is to put the tickets on sale, and they might actually get sold.

The build-up to the match was dominated by all-to-predictable references to past clashes from the 80s and onwards – the 85 Grand Final brawl, Brereton-Duckworth, the line in the sand brawl, Lloyd-Sewell etc – I paraphrase because it’s exactly the same every year. In the same way that obituaries of noteworthy people are pre-recorded and ready to go at the drop of the hat, or a kick of the bucket, there are ready made introductions to Hawthorn-Essendon games that feature exactly the same footage every year. Commentators relay this history as if we’ve never heard it before. Just as the news on Boxing Day evening is always a variation on the same theme – the MCG Test match, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, so too previews of Hawthorn-Essendon games.

This year, however, there was an added element – the ‘no Buddy’ factor. Buddy Franklin kicked 8 goals last time Hawthorn played Essendon. This was in addition to two previous bags of 9 against them, plus the two famous running goals at the MCG in 2010.  So this year commentators were suggesting that with no Buddy, this was a new landscape for a Hawthorn-Essendon game, with the underlying suggestion that in the absence of Hawthorn’s usual match-winner in this fixture, Essendon might have a chance.

During the week actress Gwyneth Paltrow made news when she announced that she was separating from husband, Chris Martin, lead singer of soft-rock outfit, Coldplay. The split wasn’t news so much as the phrase she used to describe it – “conscious uncoupling” – instead of “divorce”, “separation” or “musical differences” and as opposed to “unconscious coupling” such as might occur after a work Christmas party.

As has been well documented, Buddy Franklin left Hawthorn for Sydney at the end of 2013, in what might also be called a “conscious uncoupling.”  Most Hawks fans have gotten over it, even his most ardent admirers like me, so the constant reiterating of his departure and what effect it might have has just become tiresome, and we’re only two games into the season. You can only imagine how tedious this will become in the build-up to the Hawthorn-Sydney game in Round 8.

Half truth

Truth be told, I felt a certain foreboding about this game, a presentiment that was only heightened when news came through that Sam Mitchell was ruled out injured. This was far worse than the fact that Franklin wasn’t playing, if only because Mitchell at least is a Hawthorn player. Already missing key tall defenders Brian Lake and Ben Stratton, as well as midfielder Brad Sewell, this was unwelcome news indeed. It could only get worse if Luke Hodge were to become injured…

On the other hand, Cyril Rioli was back for his first game of the season, and where there’s Cyril, there’s hope.

Essendon started the game well, maintaining possession and looking dangerous. But half-way through the quarter Hawthorn had the only three goals of the match, through Luke Breust, Bradley Hill and Jarryd Roughead, whose shot was an audacious roost over his head while facing away from goal. All was looking well – even if it was in the wrong direction.

Even when Essendon’s peppering of the goals finally yielded a major, Hawthorn responded with a goal to Gunston, and despite the play being fairly even, Hawthorn held a handsome 14 point lead.

The second quarter followed a similar pattern; the play was more or less even but Hawthorn was more precise across the field and more accurate in front of goal. We kicked five goals to two, including a couple of beauties from the long, accurate left boot of Matthew Suckling.

By half-time the lead was 32 points and I was composing cocky text messages to send to Bombers fans.

Our outsized and relatively inexperienced defenders Taylor Duryea and Kyle Cheney were competing strongly against their taller opponents, as was debutant Angus Litherland, and with Gibson, Hodge and Birchall playing their usual strong games, there didn’t appear to be too much to worry about.

Cloak app

There’s a new anti-social app growing in popularity called ‘Cloak’ that reads data from the devices of people in your contacts list and displays it so that you can avoid running into them. Perfect for evading former lovers, your boss, or indeed anyone you know should you happen to be out with someone other than your partner.

Perfect also for avoiding your team mates, as it seemed that every Hawthorn player had downloaded the app at half-time, despite the ruling about no mobile phones in the rooms. I don’t know if it was the Cloak app or something else, but in the third quarter handballs missed targets, kicks went to no one in particular, or worse, to Essendon players and our defenders were nowhere near their Essendon opponents. Soon after Hodge was penalised for deliberate out of bounds, from which Essendon goaled, he limped off injured and was subbed out of the game.

Special comments

It seemed like the umpires too had activated some version of the Cloak app for they couldn’t see Hawthorn players at all but found regular occasion to award Essendon free kicks in front of goal. The only person keener to find a free kick for Essendon was Dennis Cometti, who was barracking away for the Bombers in the commentary box – what was that all about? In Federal Parliament during the week the Opposition sought a no confidence vote on the speaker, Bronwyn Bishop, on the grounds of manifest bias. I felt like moving the same motion on Dennis Cometti.

A six goal to zero third quarter and all of a sudden we were behind at the final break. We simply weren’t able to get hold of the ball. My pre-match premonition seemed to be playing out and I was glad I was at home and not cowering somewhere on Level 3 at Etihad.

Watching from Japan, my friend Chan-Tha emailed a simple “WTF!”

The way it was going I was going to need to download the Cloak app so I could elude Essendon fans for a few weeks.

The Burgoyne is better

When Jackson Merrett kicked the opening goal of the final quarter for Essendon, the outlook grew even gloomier. Of our forward line, Roughead and Gunston were being well held, Tim O’Brien was unsighted and while Breust and Rioli were trying hard, we just weren’t creating opportunities for them.

Hawthorn was suffering through an uncharacteristic goal drought that had begun in the second quarter and didn’t look like breaking any time soon, until a classic piece of play in the 15th minute by the Poo, Paul Puopolo, got the first trickle flowing.

In a classic goal for goal denouement, Patrick Ambrose responded for Essendon, followed by Simpkin for Hawthorn, after some brilliant work by Burgoyne – gathering the ball in the pocket, he turned and was running along the goal line by the behind post, but instead of attempting an unlikely snap, he squared the ball to Simpkin who was 20 metres out directly in front.

The next goal was kicked by Paul Chapman to put Essendon 10 points ahead with only three minutes to go. Last year when there was talk that Chapman would leave Geelong, I advocated that Hawthorn should recruit him, not necessarily for him to play, just to prevent him from playing against us! Feeling vindicated didn’t make me feel any better after he had kicked what appeared to be the sealer.

Hawthorn’s response came immediately – Burgoyne sharked the tap and kicked long where Breust trapped it and snapped a goal on his left. It took just 10 seconds from Chapman’s goal and we were back within a goal. Then with just over a minute to go Essendon’s David Myers (wearing no. 23 it should be noted) kicked on the full. From the free kick Hawthorn moved the ball quickly and Smith, Breust and Hill combined to get it to Cyril for the match winner.

Burgoyne won the ball again from the next bounce and kicked long to Rioli who measured a pass to Hill. Hill missed, but in Essendon’s scramble to get the ball forward, Roughead was alone at half back to take the mark and end the match.

There really is no better way to win a game of football than a goal with a minute or so to go. And kicking it into the Hawthorn fans end of the stadium provided a glorious backdrop of brown and gold mayhem for the celebratory group hug.


Final scores: Hawthorn 13. 12. 90  d  Essendon 12. 14. 86

Attendance: 44,163

Ladder position: 5th


What we learned: The magic number 23 was again pivotal to Hawthorn’s win. This time it was Essendon’s David Myers’ hurried kick out of a pack that gave Hawthorn possession in the crucial final minute.

According to the statistics, our own number 23, Tim O’Brien, had four touches, although I must have missed them. The only touch I saw him get was when he signed a souvenir football at the end for one of the kids ringing the boundary.  Still, Clarko and the selectors know what they’re doing and our number 23 is coming along nicely. Remember, Dermie was a redhead before he went blond, so the potential is there.


What we already knew: A little bit of Rough can sometimes be enough. Jarryd Roughead wasn’t a major influence on the match, yet anyone watching the highlights package might think that he dominated the game. At times you needed radar technology and satellite data to prove that he was even out there, but when they run the highlights reel, you’ll see his over the head goal in the first quarter, his big leap and one handed pluck in the second quarter and his match saving mark at the end of the match. So he kicked goal of the night, took the mark of the night and saved the game.


Kim Jong-heppell: It’s been reported that North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, has decreed that all male university students must adopt the same haircut that he sports – a short back and sides with an 80s fop, or what resembles a small marsupial on top. This seems somewhat extreme, but the male university students don’t seem to mind. After all, it would be worse if Dyson Heppell became the supreme leader of North Korea.

What do you mean I need to grow up?: Is this immature – on Saturday morning I had occasion to drive past Windy Hill and as I did so, I opened the window and yelled out “Cyrriill!” There was nobody around but it still felt good.

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