Round 14 - Hawthorn v Collingwood

MCG, Saturday 21 June 2014

Let’s Do The Time Warp – Footy on Saturday afternoon

Game times for matches at Brazil 2014 are extremely inconvenient for those of us living on the eastern Australian seaboard. Matches are scheduled to commence at 2.00am or 4.00am – too late to stay up; too early to get up, and there’s some at 7.30am when we’re already on our way to work. Hardly conducive to easy viewing. 

So it was refreshing to find this Hawthorn Collingwood match scheduled for 2.10 on a Saturday afternoon – the first Hawks match for the season in Melbourne in this the traditional timeslot. And lo and behold: 70,000 people turned up to watch! 

One fears however, that the AFL is taking note of the popularity of the World Cup and is perhaps considering a Wednesday 2.00am timeslot. After all, they’re now proposing a Good Friday game, although interestingly they are saying it may be too early to schedule one for next season – what, it takes 18 months to work that into the fixture? You could actually decide the night before – in fact that might be the best way to determine which teams should play.  Several clubs are squabbling in a rather unseemly manner over the right to play on this day – not Hawthorn it should be pointed out – so perhaps the first two teams to turn up to the MCG on the day with full kit should be given the right to just go for it. 

It’s probably fortunate that this match was commencing at 2.10pm, because I may not have got there had it been any later. The night previous I’d been to a big dinner to celebrate a milestone birthday – let’s just say it’s a number so high no Hawthorn player has ever worn it – and it’s fair to say I was a little ‘tired and emotional’ on the night. By the time I got to the ground I was just tired, so had it been any later it’s likely I would have been asleep. As such I was hoping for a gentle game, something I could watch in relative ease with just a modicum of barracking required of me. 

Holding the Ball explained

If only those Collingwood fans could have kept it down. All that booing!

There has been much confusion over the ‘Holding the Ball’ rule in recent weeks, with various commentators, even coaches and players expressing frustration over the different interpretations that umpires bring to it.

In this match the three controlling umpires seemed to reach some sort of consensus about how the rule should be applied. I think I speak for all Hawthorn fans when I say that we all benefited from this clarification. All such decisions were adjudicated in a clear and correct manner: if a Collingwood player was caught with the ball, and didn’t make a purposeful attempt to dispose of it correctly, then it was ruled to be a Hawthorn free kick. Fair enough too. If, however, a Hawthorn player was caught with the ball, regardless of his pantomime act to clear it, the umpire ruled that there was no prior opportunity to dispose of it and called for a ball up. Now what’s confusing about that? Sounds to me like they tapped into a universal law. You would think that bringing such clarity to this contested rule would satisfy everyone, but Collingwood fans gave fairly regular voice to their disapproval.  

Likewise when Collingwood’s Scott Pendlebury was penalised for a throw, which led to a crucial Hawthorn goal. Replays may well have revealed it to be a handball rather than a throw, but again, people are trying to put too literal interpretation on the decision; sometimes the umpire has to adjudicate in the spirit of the game rather than like some automaton simply applying rules. 

Hip hip hooray…it’s Hawthorn

Another universal law dictates that Rough should kick our first and this he did. I missed it unfortunately because I was outside giving Chan-Tha her ticket – she was feeling even seedier than me. She’d also been to the dinner, but her condition was compounded by a full week of World Cup watching. Hence she was late to the game. On the other hand I also missed Clinton Young’s reply for Collingwood so I was grateful to Chan-Tha for that.

Eventually we were all seated: Chan-Tha, Oscar, myself, and Julian, a Collingwod fan it’s true, but at least he’d got there early enough to save the seats.

Aside from the free kick decisions, we were able to enjoy a reasonably even first quarter. Both sides took turns to attack and it was only a brace from Breust towards the end of the quarter that gave the Hawks an 8 point lead at quarter time. 

Roughead and Breust both bagged early goals in the second quarter and when even Jonathan Ceglar slotted one the Hawks held a comfy 22 point lead. As I commented on Ceglar’s good recent form, Julian reminded me that Collingwood had discarded him. Even better I thought, as I settled in to enjoy a nice gradual Hawthorn ascendency and eventual victory.

Predictably, the very moment I began to anticipate a carefree afternoon, Collingwood, and in particular, Travis Cloke, mounted a comeback. Two strong marks both resulted in goals, the second of which came right on the siren to make the difference just 9 points. This was enough to get the Magpie fans on their feet to give their team a standing ovation as they jogged from the field, their chins held high and their chests puffed out in acknowledgement of their own magnificence. 

At this point I was quite confident we’d win. One of the things about getting older is that you’ve seen most things before. In this case I’d seen it just last season – Collingwood drawing close on the half-time siren and jogging off as heroes to a rapturous reception, only to get smashed in the third quarter. 

In the third quarter when Schoenmakers dispossessed Lumumba of the ball and Matt Suckling passed to Cyril Rioli by himself in the goal square, I thought the blitz was about to begin. And it did, just not for us. Two goals in two minutes to Collingwood, one to Jamie Elliot from a mark followed by Cloke’s fourth as he rolled it through from near the boundary. Suddenly the difference was just two points! Listening to the baying Collingwood fans I was feeling every bit my age. 

Never a Frown With the Gold and Brown

Brad Sewell had been playing well and he got one back for us to maintain our narrow advantage. Then late in the term the Hawks banged on a few in a quick burst: Breust roved a pack after Hodge bombed one in long, then the Poo, Rioli and Hill combined for a beautiful team goal, and this was followed by the best of all – the Poo climbing high over the back of a pack to drag down a screamer, from which he goaled. Suddenly we were 27 points in front approaching the final break; and despite a late goal to Collingwood, the general consensus was that that the Hawks were unlikely to relinquish their lead. 

Gunston marked and goaled early in the final quarter to emphasise the point.

Cloke scored the next goal and although it kept Collingwood in the game, even Hawthorn fans didn’t begrudge him kicking it. He’d marked wide on the boundary and as he lined up his kick from right on the fence, the big screen showed a Hawthorn fan leaning over and mouthing off in Cloke’s face, doubtless offering the sort of advice that people who have never stepped over the white line feel they are eminently qualified to give - I know, I do it every week. Where I’m perhaps different is that I know enough not to get in the face of one who does, especially one as massive as Travis Cloke. By the time Cloke took his kick, even Hawthorn fans were hoping he’d put it through – just to shut this guy up. When inevitably the ball sailed straight through the middle for his fifth, Cloke offered his interlocutor some of his own advice, which we couldn’t hear but which was nonetheless perfectly clear.

The Pies were still in it at this stage, if only marginally, but what slight chance they had was snuffed out within five minutes when Rioli and then Smith goaled in quick succession.  More goals followed, but the contest was winding down by then and most people’s attention had shifted to being home in the warmth. 

In the end the difference was that Hawthorn played a strong team game with a good spread of contributors, whereas Collingwood relied on the usual group of three or four: Scott Pendlebury, Jamie Elliot, Luke Ball and in particular Travis Cloke. Even though Cloke kicked five and played an excellent match, his opponent, Brian Lake was also good in his first match back since he injured his calf against St.Kilda. 

With key players still missing – Mitchell, Gibson, Stratton, McEvoy – any win is valuable, particularly against the higher ranked teams,  and let’s face it, it’s never a bad thing to beat Collingwood.  

Final scores: Hawthorn 17 13 115 d Collingwood 13 8 86

Ladder position – 2^nd

Attendance – 70,495

What we learned: Many people in AFL circles are lamenting the death of the time-honoured ‘bump’, but in soccer it is the great tradition of the ‘bite’ that is threatened. In its World Cup match in the week after this match, Uruguyan striker Luis Suarez sunk his choppers into Italian defender Gorgio Chielli who immediately went to ground. Suarez has copped a four month suspension for his dietary predilection. What’s surprising is not that he bit the defender, given his form in this area, but that he thought he needed to. After all, you don’t need to bite an Italian footballer for them to go to ground in the box and writhe in agony – it’s a default position for them.

What we already knew: sometimes the old ways are the best ways: team tactics are now more sophisticated, individual skills are more advanced, diet and sports science sustain high performance, even boot technology and jumper fabrics are designed for optimum performance, but one thing which hasn’t changed in over 100 years of football is that Saturday afternoon is the most convenient time to get to the football; hence why more than 70,000 people turned up to watch this match. Next week I note that Collingwood and Carlton play on Sunday night – I can’t even imagine the thinking behind this scheduling.

What we really should have known: Don’t mix champagne, beer and wine over the course of one evening.  You’d think after 50 years, of which 25-30 have been spent with a working knowledge of alcohol, that this lesson might have sunk in…

Round 13 – Carlton v Hawthorn

MCG, Friday 13 June 2014

Brown and Gold Friday

  

It was Friday the 13^th and a full moon was rising in the night sky - a brace of evil portents for our match against Carlton. On top of that, Chris Judd was returning from a hamstring injury, Mick Malthouse was coaching his 700^th game and Carlton was celebrating its 150^th year as a football club - are they sure; this dates them back to 1864. Who did they play against, or is this when they won the bulk of their 16 premierships?

If these omens didn’t already send a shiver of dread down the spine of your average Hawks fan, the media had been reminding us all week that Carlton hadn’t defeated Hawthorn in any of their previous 10 meetings, a sequence dating back as far as 2006. The most obvious explanation for this happy string of victories is that we’ve been consistently better than them, however, the wicked pessimist inside me kept whispering that this run must end one day - and perhaps Black Friday with a full moon would be that day.

The worst omen, however, was not some paranormal superstition seeping out of the supernatural world, but the more prosaic problem that Jack Gunston was a late withdrawal for Hawthorn with a calf injury. As if we didn’t have enough injury problems.

Chan-Tha meets Jack Gunston, Brad Sewell and Cyril Rioli atAdidas Store, Bourke Street Mall

A more positive omen was footage during the week of Carlton training in Socceroos tops. I’m not sure what the thinking was behind that, but given Australia’s likely chance of success at the World Cup, it hinted at a team that didn’t plan on winning. They might have been better off wearing Italian ‘Azzurri’ tops – not only does it stand for ‘The Blues’, but Carlton is as synonymous with Italy as it is with Australia, and at least the Italians have a chance in the World Cup that had gotten underway that morning.

When the game got underway Chris Judd swung into action, pushing Luke Breust squarely in the back without getting penalised - the umpires and Judd immediately re-establishing their seamless working relationship. Soon after Judd was dishing off handballs and dashing through the centre to deliver the ball to Mitch Robinson for the first goal of the game. When he made his first return for the season in round 5 he’d racked up about 10 possessions in five minutes before injuring his hamstring - not that I wished that upon him, but perhaps a slight niggle or two, a troubling headache or nagging cough - something to slow his progress at least. Actually I suspected he wouldn’t be able to keep this up, or even if he could, his teammates wouldn’t be able to stay with him. The way he started was a stark reminder not only of how good a player he is, but the seam of bad luck the Hawks were mining. Why was he was suddenly available to play against us?

By the time Rough snapped our first goal - after Cyril Rioli and Shaun Burgoyne combined to get the ball forward - Judd had accumulated several more possessions.

Matt Suckling launched one of his one step 50m missile kicks to add another, but Carlton equalised through a sequence of free kicks: first Hodge was penalised for ‘in the back’ (and not being Chris Judd), while Bryce Gibbs was ‘held’ or ‘slightly caressed’ as it would be described in an erotic novel. 

From this point on, however, the Hawks took over. A goal to Liam Shiels, after slick work by the Poo, was followed by two more from dodgy free kicks. The first was a free to Carlton which they completely botched, allowing Rioli to snap a brilliant goal, and the second was to David Hale for a high tackle, which considering he was doubled over at the time seemed a little fortuitous.

Still a 25 point lead at quarter time was sufficient excuse for a trip to the Hugh Trumble bar, or at least to move away from the Blues fans Chan-Tha and I had inadvertently found ourselves sitting behind. They’d been wearing no form of club insignia when we took our seats, so we’d thought nothing of it. As Chan-Tha pointed out, however, that should have been the first sign they were supporting Carlton; people ashamed to flaunt their allegiance could only be Blues fans anticipating another embarrassing loss. 

We’d been joined by our friend Pete as well as Rachel and her partner, also Pete, so by the time we emerged from the Trumble, the complexion of the game had changed and we were glad not to be sitting near Carlton fans.

A stunning run and dribble goal from Cyril, and an exhilarating passage of play that ended with Breust snapping a goal were lone highlights of a quarter that otherwise seemed to consist of Carlton’s Mitch Robinson and Levi Casboult pulling down towering marks and kicking long goals. Most disconcertingly, Levi Casboult, who despite being a good mark, had previously demonstrated that his kicking was about as accurate as a Mayan doomsday prediction, was suddenly directing his kicks post-high through the middle. More evidence, if it were needed, that the full moon affects the flight of the Sherrin, for surely on any other night he would have missed all or most of these shots.

It was only a Tim O’Brien set shot towards the end of the quarter that kept our lead at 18 points at half-time.

If the second quarter was disconcerting, the third was diabolical. Casboult kicked his fourth within a minute of the restart, Cyril was reported for elbowing Zach Toohey in the head (the fact that he missed Toohey entirely and cleaned up Puopolo didn’t seem to come into it), Rough had a shot that missed everything and Duryea dropped a simple chest mark that led to another Carlton attack. The free kick count was also blowing out, now 14- 8 in Carlton’s favour, highlighting the value of Carlton’s week-long dummy spit in the media. When Daisy Thomas snapped a goal, the scores were suddenly level.

Rachel, who early in the match had noted my nervous habit of chewing on my scarf, was becoming fearful that I might actually wolf it down.

When Jarrad Waite goaled at the 21-minute mark, Carlton led by 7 points and if this wasn’t bad enough, Matthew Watson marked directly in front only moments later. It was looking dire. Happily, Watson missed, and it may have been this let off, or some celestial phenomenon, or just that our players loathed the gloating Carlton crowd as much as we did, but something sparked Hawthorn and we started to work the ball forward.

Two of our best players for the evening, Puopolo and Sewell combined to peg one back for us, and soon after this, another stoppage saw Lewis play third man up in the ruck and tap it towards Smith who gathered on the boundary and guided through an unlikely goal from the boundary. We were back in front at the final break, but only just.

Ole Ole

Like crime novels, football matches have their own shape, certain tropes and patterns recognisable to aficionados that hint at the ultimate denouement. In this sense teams often finish matches the way they begin, regardless of any surprising plot twists or red herrings that may have muddied the storyline along the way. And the ending that ultimately transpires is exactly what you envisaged on about page 50, or ¼ time in this instance.

Such was the case in this match. Having kicked the final two goals in the third quarter, we slotted the first two in the final quarter - first to Hill who roved the crumbs from a spoiled Roughead mark, and then to Ceglar who was pushed in the back by Casboult at a ruck contest. 

Carlton still had the odd flurry, but further goals to new boy Ben Ross, who ran in after accepting a handball from Birchall, Roughead who slid one through on his right boot, and a beautiful team goal that began with Carlton being dispossessed in the centre by Isaac Smith, who handballed to Hodge who passed to Ceglar, who handballed to Rough who passed to Cyril in the goal square by himself. Just gorgeous.

Another fine set shot by Roughead for his third and the Hawks had added 6 goals to 2 in the final quarter to mirror the first quarter and run out convincing winners by 28 points. That’s one win down for the weekend – just the Socceroos against Chile and England against Italy to go.

Hawthorn’s best players on the night were Brad Sewell, Cyril Rioli, Grant Birchall and Luke Hodge, players who are not unaccustomed to this position. Brad Hill and Paul Puopolo also played well, and we are coming to expect that weekly, but plaudits must also go to the less heralded players such as Gus Llitherland, Matt Spangher, Jon Ceglar and Kyle Cheney who all played with determination and did their fill-in jobs admirably.

Final scores: Hawthorn 18 10 118 d Carlton 13 12 90

Attendance: 49,615

Ladder position: 2nd

What we learned: Even Brazil, home of the Mardi-Gras, can’t put on a decent pre-match show. The opening ceremony for Brazil’s World Cup was every bit as underwhelming as any Grand Final pre-match ‘entertainment’. The broccoli on stilts was one thing – or were they the trees from H.R. Puff ‘n Stuff? – but Pit Bull, J-Lo and the other chick in blue were arguably worse than Angry Anderson singing ‘We Won’t Be Beaten’ from the Batmobile in 1991, or Meatloaf singing whatever it was he was ‘singing’ in 2011.

What we already knew: Carlton’s two previous weeks had resulted in close losses to Brisbane and Geelong respectively, both involving controversial umpiring decisions (in their minds at least). Such was their outrage they had a much-publicised meeting with umpires boss, Wayne Campbell. Predictably, as the match unfolded, Carlton was the beneficiaries of every line-ball decision and several that were just plain wrong.  It just reinforced that if you whine and moan long enough and loud enough, you can get your way.

What we don’t quite understand: This was Carlton’s home match against Hawthorn, at Hawthorn’s home ground.

On Sunday Collingwood played a home match against the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium – the Western Bulldogs’ home ground.  Meanwhile, Essendon played Melbourne at the MCG – Melbourne’s home ground. Why wouldn’t you schedule Collingwood to play a their home match at their home ground – the MCG, and Essendon to play their home match at their home ground – Etihad?

Elsewhere: Buddy Franklin was the star for Sydney in their win over top team Port Adelaide – a victory for the tribunal given that Buddy shouldn’t have been playing.

Essendon players were finally served with ‘show cause’ notices from ASADA last week, but after their insipid loss to lowly Melbourne, it would be no surprise if Essendon fans served their own ‘show spine’ notices on the players.

Essendon has predictably launched immediate legal action – not over the allegations of course, but the process. Essendon is happy to make the AFL waste their money on legal action, which of course is money that could be used to improve the game or support other clubs, including grass roots football teams, rather than simply respond to the charges. What are they afraid of?

Round 12 - Hawthorn v West Coast Eagles

Aurora Stadium, Saturday 8 June 2014

Days of Future Past

Matt Spangher in the rooms

In “X-Men: Days of Future Past”, Wolverine, who bears more than a passing resemblance to Matt Spangher, travels back in time from 2023 to 1973 to prevent a cataclysmic war between humans, mutants and some creatures called sentinels. Something like that anyway. The plot didn’t make an awful lot of sense to me. My son Declan knew what was going on, but for me, any narrative thread became unstitched quite early on.   

Still the dates are important; 2023 is obviously significant because of the ‘23’ and its association with all things Hawthorn, but 1973 is also meaningful. In the movie it is the crucial year when whatever was meant to be happening all began, and this is where it ties in with the Hawks because 1973 was the also first year I became a member of Hawthorn. 

They were simpler days in 1973. Hawthorn played their home games in Hawthorn, wore black shorts for home games and white shorts for away games, fans could simply wander in to the rooms under the grandstand and watch the players warm up – you could smoke in there too if you were so inclined or addicted. I was only nine years old so I didn’t, but some of the players did.  

In 1973 the USA’s chief enemies were Russia, North Vietnam and China. By 2023, the movie asserts, humans will be all but wiped out and the chief enemies will be exotic creatures like sentinels or mutants – possibly both (I couldn’t quite work it out). Likewise in footy, in 1973 the league was called the VFL and our enemies were teams from nearby Melbourne suburbs like Collingwood, Richmond and Carlton, not weird beings from far-off places like Greater Western Sydney last week and the West Coast Eagles this week. And we were playing them in Tasmania and wearing our sixth different ensemble outfit in 11 matches. 

X-man or Ex-man?

The plot of X-Men may well have been confusing, but equally baffling was the score when I checked in on the Footy Live app. I couldn’t get to the game in Tassie, but I could get to the Linc so I was following the score updates on the app until I go to the pub. Each time I’d checked the scores had been fairly even, but as I stood waiting for the tram I saw that we were trailing 22-34. What was going on down there? 

What I didn’t know until later was that the blow-out had been the work of one man – the X-Man himself...Xavier Ellis. Ellis, formerly of Hawthorn and now with the Eagles had kicked two early second quarter goals to give the Eagles a break.  I was sorry when the X-man left Hawthorn, particularly if he was going to kick goals against us. He’d always been one of my favourite players at the Hawks and it was a shame that constant injuries had interrupted his continuity and career. I’d been happy that he was doing well at the Eagles, but he didn’t need to turn on us.

Mutants or Mayblooms?

The parallels between the X-Men and the Hawthorn v West Coast Eagles match didn’t end with the fact the an actual ‘X-man’ was playing. For a start, like Wolverine in the movie, the Eagles had to travel back in time from WA just to get the battlefield. Not 50 years admittedly, but the flight from Perth crosses two time zones and can seem that long, especially if, like Dean Cox, you’re about seven feet tall and you’re stuck in Economy. 

Then there’s the various powers of the various X-men: Iceman who creates a frozen terrain – well the match was being played in Launceston, Colossus might be Luke Lowden, Hawthorn’s seven foot plus debutant, although his haircut suggested Split Enz circa 78, Quicksilver, whose speed made him nearly as fast as Cyril Rioli, who was making a very welcome return for the Hawks, and Professor X, the mastermind of the operation who was confined to a wheelchair, not unlike the situation of Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson, still battling Guillain-Barre disease. Plus there was an evil dwarf, but any resemblance between him and Paul Puopolo is entirely coincidental. Even the girl serving at the bar looked a little like Storm; well, she was wearing something black and tight. All that was missing was the hot blue babe who can change her appearance and take the form of anyone...not unlike Xavier Ellis who exchanged the brown and gold stripes for the blue and gold.

Octo-Rough

As I entered the pub I caught a glimpse of the score and saw that the Eagles were 46 – they’d kicked a further two goals while I was on the short tram ride. After our lacklustre performance the previous week I was beginning to fear the worst until I saw that we were also on 46. If we’d been able to bang on four goals in the same time then it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. Perhaps we could win after all. 

Both sides kicked points while I grabbed a beer from the bar, making it 47 each. I took a seat in a nook with a few other blokes, one of whom was wearing a Hawks scarf, so I knew I was in safe company. From the moment I sat down until half-time, the Hawks added 3.1 to nothing, with Gunston kicking 2.1 and Roughead kicking a contender for worst goal of the year. He plucked the ball out of the air on the line and as he dropped it to his boot, he missed, but happily it rolled onto his other foot and tumbled over for a goal. Half time, Hawks by 19, and at that point I learnt that Rough had kicked five goals. 

I also discovered that there was a strong breeze blowing to the end Hawthorn had been kicking in the second. This meant we had to hold the Eagles in the third quarter. Half way through the quarter, both teams had added a goal, so it was looking good for the Hawks, but it was looking even better when we added five goals in the next 7 or 8 minutes; first Isaac Smith, then Matt Suckling, Rough, a beautiful snap from Cyril and then Hodge off the ground in a goal square scramble. It was a blistering but decisive burst that pretty much decided the game. At last a narrative thread that made sense to me.

I was seated under one screen and facing another, so I couldn’t clearly make out the conversation being carried on across from me, but it appeared that the older of the fellas opposite was an ex-player – he was busy regaling his younger interlocuters with tales of footy in the 80s, 90s. I didn’t recognise him and I didn’t like to ask – besides, my attention was distracted by watching the Hawks, who were tackling hard and playing with some of the zest that had been missing the previous week. Spangher was competing well, as were Ryan Schoenmakers and Angus Litherland, while Grant Birchall was as creative and assured as ever. 

The final quarter was fairly lacklustre but after the late third quarter flurry it didn’t really matter. Roughead kicked his seventh and Luke Lowden his third, by which time I was onto my fourth pot. Obviously we were wanting Rough to snag a few more and he got one more chance just near the end when he ran onto a loose ball, took possession, regained his balance and like Octo-mum, delivered his eighth. 

Final scores: Hawthorn 19 9 123 d West Coast Eagles 12 7 79

ladder position: 2^nd

attendance: 15,503

What we learned: Is Dane Swan a bit dim or does he just think the rest of us are? During the week he was criticised for attending the opening of a pizza and pasta restaurant that has links with underworld figure, Mick Gatto. Swan defended himself by claiming he wasn’t aware Gatto had any links to the restaurant, which might be fair enough if the restaurant wasn’t called “Gatto Nero”. The moralists in the press who are alarmed about the company Dane Swan keeps should be more concerned by the shady characters with whom he shares a dressing room before they cast aspersions about other members of the community.  

What we already knew: The competition is definitively set up to favour Sydney. We know they receive $1 million more in the salary cap than other clubs. Their president can act as indignant and offended as he wants whenever someone suggests that this arrangement isn’t equitable, but the simple fact is they get $1 million more in the salary cap and then bought a certain high profile player for guess what, approximately $1 million a year.  

It also seems, however, that their players have a licence to hit without any fear of a sanction. This week Buddy made head-high contact with a Gold Coast player when he elected to bump rather than tackle him. It was almost identical to the incident in Round 23 of 2013 when Buddy bumped Nick Malceski and was suspended for 1 week. This week, however, now that he plays for Sydney, it is apparently okay! The only difference is the jumper he was wearing. I thought the head was sacrosanct, or does it depend on who’s head? The fact that the Suns player didn’t overact like Malceski did shouldn’t matter. This comes a week after Adam Goodes elbowed Josh Selwood in the head and wasn’t charged. Even if you allow for the fact that Selwood was probably ducking, it was still an indiscriminate elbow to the head. And the week previous Dan Hanneberry made head high contact with Essendon’s Hurley, but wasn’t charged. Nor was Nick Malceski who knocked out an umpire. Other players have received I6 week bans for just touching an umpire – Malceski knocked one unconscious. Meanwhile Roughead was suspended for a week for bumping McGlynn when we played Sydney. Seriously, quite aside from the unfair salary cap allowance off the field, it seems Sydney is playing by different rules on the field. 

Apology: My apologies for the late posting for this match. Time constraints, technical difficulties and the ageing process combined to thwart me this week. 

Round 11 - Hawthorn v Greater Western Sydney

MCG, Saturday 1 June 2014

Giant Killers

Not matt Spangher, or Conchita

If I’m reading the markets correctly, at sporstbet.com you can get odds of 501 to 1 on Jesus Christ returning before 28 September 2015 (which interestingly is two days after the Grand Final), so long as you can prove it is indeed Jesus who has returned. And showing a photo of Matt Spangher presumably won’t cut it.

Setting aside that this is the type of thing on which you might bet money, rather than just your conviction, these odds are only marginally more generous than those offered for GWS to defeat Hawthorn at the MCG on Sunday, notwithstanding Hawthorn’s growing injury list and senior coach Alastair Clarkson’s sudden hospitalisation. They are sill somewhat shorter odds than those on offer for the Socceroos to win the World Cup, which stand at 751 to 1. This means that people believe there is more likelihood of Jesus returning in the next 15 months than there is of Australia winning the World Cup. I’d perhaps go further and say that Australia’s only chance of winning the World Cup is if Jesus does return and through some complex ancestral mix-up, perhaps involving forged papers, is eligible to represent Australia. Unlikely given the current government’s rigid stance on immigration from the Middle East.

Perhaps the confidence about Jesus returning is base don the Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio.

The World Cup is still over a week away, however, and we know Jesus won’t return because if there was a God, Hawthorn wouldn’t be suffering such a horrendous run with injuries. Indeed before the match Hawthorn lost three more players: Ben McEvoy after an injury suffered in the loss to Port Adelaide, and Ben Stratton and Jordan Lewis mysteriously during the week. That makes Mitchell, Rioli, Gibson, Lake, Lewis, Stratton, and McEvoy (not including Whitecross and Anderson who both played finals last season) all missing. Workcover Victoria has signalled that it is investigating Essendon over its supplements program, but I think they should get down to Hawthorn and check out what is going on down there with respect to workplace safety. The Australian troops in East Timor have a lower casualty rate. Even the retail assistant I spoke to at The Hawks shop when I called to order my indigenous jumper sounded like she was coming down with a cold.  

Even so, Luke Hodge, Jarryd Roughead and Brad Sewell were back; Jack Gunston, Luke Breust, Isaac Smith, Brad Hill and Shaun Burgoyne were all playing, so there was sufficient talent to suggest that the Hawks were a safer bet than the second coming.

And when Gunston slotted a goal in the first minute anyone with $100 on the Hawks at odds of $1.01 probably felt justified in dreaming about how to spend their $1 worth of winnings. At that point Hawthorn led 1.1.7 to zero, however, from that moment on we were unable to extend it. In fact from that moment both teams scored exactly the same. We led by as much as 13 points at one stage, but never more, and even trailed for extended periods of the game.

There were moments when you looked in the centre bounce and our combination involving Ceglar, Langford, Hallahan and were less experienced than their Giants counterparts.  Even so, nothing could excuse the mis-kicks and missed marks, the slow ball movement and sloppy handballs - not even the conditions, slippery and difficult after a daylong downpour.

Our indigenous top - the best part of the day

Chan-Tha and I were at the match, you might even have seen us if you were watching because there weren’t too many other people there, although we took refuge under cover or in the Hugh Trumble Bar. Fifteen solid hours of rain, freezing conditions and the start time of 4.40pm kept most right thinking people, or those with lives to be getting on with, at home. We were only there because after two interstate games either side of a bye, we hadn’t seen the Hawks win for a month, and we sensed victory against the struggling Giants.

Even a quarter time deficit of a goal didn’t necessarily dissuade us, for surely Hawthorn would turn it on and blitz them, or just gradually edge further ahead. The Giants were playing a counter-attacking game of packing the backline and then breaking when they took possession. They moved the ball quickly and accurately and with Hawthorn’s decimated defence, scored relatively easily. But this sort of game plan is rarely successful over four quarters, and certainly not against good teams like Hawthorn. Is it?

When the Hawks bagged the first couple of goals in the second quarter, (Sewell and Breust), it looked like things would finally get moving. After Devon Smith kicked another for the Giants, Hawthorn followed with two more quick goals - a  big roost on the run from Gunston and an unlikely right foot snap from Smith. At last we thought, now we’re finally getting it together. But the Giants kicked another and we went in at half time just 11 points in front.

By half way through the third quarter it was becoming clear that we were not going to cruise to victory as easily we imagined, and when Rhys Palmer kicked a goal to put the Giants in front 22 minutes in, the notion that we might actually lose began to surface. Then they kicked another! 

It was a very frustrating match to watch; like reading an inferior novel by a favourite author - you keep thinking that surely it will pick up soon, and when it doesn’t, you not only find faults that you might have overlooked in a superior work, but you notice how long it is dragging on and you begin to resent the time you’re wasting by reading it – a salient point in a game where each quarter ran well over 30 minutes, despite a relatively low number of goals and virtually no time wasted through injury. 

Our thoughts were obviously were with Clarko, wondering whether he was watching from hospital and suffering some sort of relapse, or more likely, ripping the drips out of his arm, detaching himself from various monitors and rushing to the ground to address the team at the three quarter time break.

Happily Gunston and Smith both added goals to give the Hawks a one point lead at the final break, but the cheering in the stands was more an outpouring of relief than any celebration. As handballs were intercepted or kicks dropped short of their targets, the predominant crowd noise was that of 15,000 Hawks fans groaning, “just kick it” in exasperation. In our players’ defence, part of the problem might have been the new indigenous-themed jumper we were wearing for indigenous round. Not that there is anything wrong with the design - it is actually stylish - but it is predominantly brown, and in the dull gloaming on the first day of winter, perhaps they simply couldn’t see each other.

The final quarter, we hoped, would see our boys take over and settle our growing unease. And when Roughead bombed one through from 50 it looked like things might be set to turn. Moments later however, Patton outmarked several Hawks in the goal square to make the difference less than a goal. 

A free kick to Smith, a good set shot from Gunston and a smattering of behinds either way saw the Hawks in front by 13 points as we hit time on - surely that would be enough. But no sooner had I allowed that thought to surface than GWS kicked another, goal, which was quickly followed by Patton taking another towering grab 20 metres out. This would make the difference just 1 point and the very real possibility of losing to the league’s easy beats was looming. Patton, perhaps sensing the chance, shanked his kick and missed. One more behind to Duryea took out the option of a draw and when the siren sounded, so did a muted rendition of, “We’re an anxious team at Hawthorn”  

The second coming may be at reasonably long odds, but on the current form, it is clear to me that the return of Jesus is not nearly as important as the return of Mitchell, Rioli and above all, Alastair Clarkson.

Final scores: Hawthorn 14 10 94 d GWS 13 9 87

Attendance: 17,904

Ladder position: 2^nd

What we learned: coaching a team of elite AFL footballers is more difficult than it appears. Hawthorn is a team of highly paid, highly drilled professional players who live and train in a hermetically sealed environment where their heart rate, diet, brain waves, emotional intelligence, skin folds, social media use, libido, white cell count, fitness and fatigue levels are monitored and assessed daily by a team of health, well-being and mindfulness specialists, life coaches and Zen consultants. So you’d think that all you have to do to bring about victory against one of the bottom teams is point them in the right direction and make sure they enter the playing field on time. Hawthorn caretaker coach, Brendan ‘Bolts’ Bolton, discovered however that just sitting next to Clarko in the coaches box and having a vague working knowledge of the game plan isn’t necessarily sufficient. Clarko brings a whole lot more to game day - namely fear and intimidation.

In the lead up to the match captain Luke Hodge had spoken of how much respect the playing group has for Bolts, but is respect enough? In times of difficulty, when the rolling zone or the cluster or running overlap play isn’t getting the required results, a good old fashioned spray from Clarko can help switch on the players’ focus and bring about the necessary turnaround. Clarko scares them into playing well because they live in fear of what might befall them if they don’t. Fear of failure is a powerful motivator; fear of Clarko is even stronger. We support and love ‘Bolts’, he seems like a good bloke, but it remains to be seen if he can add to his coaching repertoire the necessary level of menace that will get the boys ‘playing for him’ as they say.   

What we already knew: It was only a matter of time before another player hit the headlines for a social media faux pas. Carlton has sacked young defender Josh Bootsma for what they’re calling ‘inappropriate use of social media’ in that he posted explicit photos on Snapchat. The idea of Bootsma posting explicit photos is indeed shocking, mainly because he looks like Napolean Dynamite, but the real issue here is that he was obviously stupid enough to admit to it. There’s an old saying in legal circles; “deny everything; even if they’ve got photos, deny it.” The beauty of Snapchat is that they don’t have photos because the app self-deletes them. So when Bootsma was asked if he’d posted these images, he should simply have said ‘No’. 

Josh Bootsma - photo cropped for decency

Round 10 - Port Adelaide v Hawthorn

Adelaide Oval, Saturday 24 May 2014

A Night at the Opera

Hawthorn's rooms before the match

Hawthorn matches are currently viewed in light of which players are not playing rather than the players that are.  It’s a bit like the forthcoming Queen tour announced this week – the band that is, not the monarch – who will take to Australian stages later in the year with only 50% of their first choice players. Missing will be Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991, and John Deacon, who has retired. That leaves only guitarist Brian May and drummer Roger Taylor from the original line-up.



For this top of the table clash the Hawks were missing Jarryd Roughead (suspension), Sam Mitchell (hamstring), Cyril Rioli (hamstring), Brain Lake (calf) and Josh Gibson (pectoral). So that’s our best forward (Roughead), our best half-forward (Rioli), our best midfielder (Mitchell), our best half back (Gibson) and our best backman (Lake).  And then our ruckman Ben McEvoy limped off after half-time. In truth, Hawthorn’s predicament is more akin to Queen without even Brian May, and with Roger Taylor having one hand tied behind his back.

Gibson’s case is the most intriguing. With the Hawks having a bye after the Sydney game, Gibson took the chance to fly to LA to visit his girlfriend, American TV host, Renee Bargh. He left with a sore shoulder and returned with a torn pectoral muscle, which makes you wonder exactly what they got up to…and how often. And if it was as much fun as it sounds, why he returned at all. The most interesting aspect of all of this is that the slightly built, but beautiful Ms Bargh managed to hurt Gibson in ways that neither Travis Cloke, Buddy Franklin, Tom Hawkins nor any of the AFL’s supposed power forwards could.

Port started the match as strong favourites, but most Hawks fans were just hoping for no further injuries. I wasn’t able to watch the match as, to cite the name of Queen’s fourth album; I was spending ‘A Night at the Opera’. Well not quite the opera, I was at Howler, a bar in Brunswick to see American songstress, St Vincent play. Normally I’d have been torn between the two events, but I didn’t give the Hawks much chance with so many senior players missing and playing at an unfamiliar venue. Besides, I’d set the record function so the plan was to go to the gig, keep a check on the scores and watch the match back later.

Is that a hawk in the Queen logo? 

The Game

I saw snippets of the first quarter as I was getting ready and after Port kicked the first few goals it looked like we might suffer a big defeat. I was confident that the Hawks would work their way back into the match, but I was going to have to follow it via the AFL Live app. Rather than have the app on at all times, I elected to check in every 10 minutes or so. This wasn’t a battery saving decision, just a vain hope that there’d be a sudden improvement in the scoreline. However, each time I checked in we were four goals or more behind.

When I heard that McEvoy was hurt, the song ‘Another one Bites the Dust’ from Queen’s eighth album ‘The Game’ immediately sprang to mind.

A half-time scoreline of  8.3 to 4.4 as I arrived at the venue wasn’t promising. I met my friend John, got in some beers, Hawthorn Pale Ale seemed fitting, and we grabbed a seat to take in the support act, D.D Dumbo. He was pretty good actually. A sort of one man band, he started each track by setting up a beat or a riff on a loop and then proceeding to add multiple layers over the top as he played guitar and sang. It was interesting enough to distract me from the game at least.

It’s a curious experience following the match via app. It’s like playing online pokies; every time you press refresh or check the screen you’re at the mercy of some technological algorithm just hoping for the right numbers to appear. You get your hopes up as you click for the update, only to have them dashed when you see the score is 11.5.71 to 6.5. 41. I felt as deflated as an online gambler down to their last $10 of credit.

The Miracle

At that point I focused more on D.D Dumbo’s performance and thought how useful he’d be in the Hawks right now – someone who could do it all. Like Roughead I suppose. Then I put in my last $1 and refreshed the app, and couldn’t believe it – my numbers had come up! The Hawks were coming back. It was 11.7 to 10.6 and we were back in the game at three quarter time.

I fired off a quick “Come on Hawks!” text to Chan-Tha who was also taking in the game via digital means from a beer expo.

By the time the final quarter started I was in the crush of St Vincent fans waiting for her to come on stage. The electric buzz of her opening track, Rattlesnake, reverberated in the room as she appeared and I strained for a good view. Chan-Tha texted back “losing again”. I got a score update as St Vincent began her next song, “Birth in Reverse” and the opening lines of the song, “Oh what an ordinary day” summed up my mood as I noticed that Port had added two early final quarter goals.  We pulled one back, but when I next checked Port had bagged another. To call on another Queen title, we required a ‘miracle’ to bring this one home. I hadn’t given up, but I focused my attention on St Vincent who was putting on a dynamic and powerful performance. She was singing “I want all of your mind” and while I couldn’t quite give her all of it, as I was keeping an eye on the score until the end of the match, I was certainly happy to lose myself in the show.

The final score suggested that Hawthorn continued to fight hard and kept coming back. I’ll probably watch the game during the week just to see how it actually unfolded and who played well. It’s difficult to know to what degree our injuries contributed to the outcome, but in the end I wasn’t too disappointed; playing Port Adelaide in Adelaide is always difficult, and with the crowds packing out the Adelaide Oval, it has become a hostile environment for visiting teams. With the loss to Sydney and the bye, however, it’s now been a month since we won! Thank God we have GWS next week.

With most of our injured players out for extended periods, it is going to be tough to maintain our momentum through the middle part of the season, but if we can hang in there and win enough games to make the finals, and we have all of our players fixed, fit and firing – and we can keep Gibbo away from his girlfriend - then we might just become the first team to win the flag from outside the top four. At that point we can join in with Freddie to belt out Queen’s great anthem, “We are the Champions” when they do their lap of honour. I noted during the 2013 lap that the recording is a bit scratchy and wondered if perhaps they’re still using the original 7-inch single.

That’s something to look forward to at least, because surely nothing else could go wrong…


Final scores: Port Adelaide 15 10 100  d  Hawthorn 13 8 86

Ladder position: 4th

Attendance: 

…well, as it turns out a lot more could go wrong. Our main ma, coaching maestro Alastair Clarkson has been admitted to hospital with Guillain-Barre syndrome, an inflammation of the nerves in the spinal cord. He’ll be out of action indefinitely. This is a very serious condition – not just something he picked up from drinking the water in Adelaide. You wonder if Clarko isn’t just trying to show up all those overpaid pretty boys with their soft tissue injuries, wellness forms and rehab coaches as the hypochondriacs he suspects them to be.

Our season may well be in jeopardy now, but Clarko’s recovery is more important than Hawthorn’s current premiership campaign. Alastair Clarkson is one of Hawthorn’s great coaching figures and while we want him back at the helm, first and foremost we want him to be healthy and well...and then back at the helm.

One measure of a coach is how many premierships they win – Clarko has two. Another measure is how many of their assistants are poached for senior coaching roles with other clubs. At present there are three: Damian Hardwick (Richmond), Adam Simpson (West Coast) and Leon Cameron (GWS). Four if you count Brendan Bolton, or ‘Bolts’ as he is inevitably known, who will be stepping in for Clarkson.

A less tangible but possibly more important measure might be the degree of esteem and adoration in which he is held by Hawthorn fans. We love him. We love that he describes Sam Mitchell getting 40 touches as ‘pleasing’ rather than ‘awe inspiring’, that every other club is a ‘formidable opponent’ and that whenever we lose he refers to ‘licking our wounds’ – which given the current rehab list will require some fervent slurping. We love that he punched a hole in the wall of the coaches box when we let Collingwood get within 40 points; we love that he had to be physically restrained from punching a hole in Matthew Lloyd after Lloyd had ironed out Brad Sewell in 2009; we love that he called a reporter a ‘knob head’ for being, well, a knob head. These incidents that have others questioning his temperament are among the very reasons he has endeared himself to Hawks fans, although the two premierships have certainly helped…

Get well soon Clarko!

What we learned: if we didn’t already know it, we learned that some things are more important than football and whether your team wins…and that is the health and well-being of those who are directly responsible for making your team win.

What we already knew: that Gary Ablett would escape any sort of punishment for ‘allegedly’ elbowing Liam Picken from the Western Bulldogs in the head (see how I used the proper legal term ‘allegedly’ meaning he did it, but we’re not allowed to say so). I suspect the AFL is also pleased that they will be spared the embarrassment of having to present the Brownlow medal to someone who has finished 20 votes behind Ablett. Not that I’m alleging a fix of any sort, but the only match review or tribunal decisions to rival this as foregone conclusions are those involving Sydney players, who as part of their cost of living allowance, are entitled to knock players or indeed umpires unconscious without any repercussions. Just as in the 2005 Preliminary Final when Barry Hall was judged not to have ‘punched’ Matt Maguire of St Kilda, despite his fist going directly into Maguire’s midriff.

Round 8 - Sydney Swans v Hawthorn

ANZ Stadium, Friday 9 May 2014

Long on injuries – short on salary cap

In the end it was exactly what we always feared; Buddy was the difference. Not that he was the most outstanding player on the ground, or that he was even dominant, but he kicked 2.7.19, which, as it happens, is exactly what Sydney won by.

It was a similar story in his Hawthorn years - we would often win by more or less the score he kicked, so it was fitting, if depressingly predictable that he would reverse that when playing against us. Even at three quarter time when he had no goals and seven behinds to his name, most Hawthorn fans knew what was coming and sure enough, his two final quarter goals gave the Swans the advantage we couldn’t overcome.

With Tippet kicking four goals, this was a victory for Sydney’s bloated salary cap and the different rule sunder which they operate.

I took in the match with Chan-Tha, Alex and Jason at the Duke of Wellington Hotel the city. The Duke may charge a fortune for drinks, but they do cater for sporting enthusiasts with plenty of screens each clearly labelled as to the sport that will be shown. So you don’t waste your time securing a prime spot with a good view and a convenient ledge or table only to discover that you’re watching the Melbourne Rebels or the Wellington Nobodies falling about in some approximation of a game, and having to decamp to another screen. Weirdly, they turn off the music for the commentary, which in a crowded pub with lots of chatter, is inaudible anyway.

The other thing about the Duke - they serve the best pub chips in Melbourne. So Hawthorn and hot chips - can’t beat that.

With Sam Mitchell and Brian Lake already missing, along with Brad Sewell, the banner along the foot of the screen announcing that Luke Hodge as a late withdrawal gave me a sick feeling in the stomach, and that was before I’d had a bag of chips and several pints of Kosciusko Pale Ale.

In fact I’d given up on the match at this point. Regardless of the Buddy factor, I didn’t see how we could match Sydney with so many of our key players missing. And so it seemed early on as Sydney did all the attacking and had 3.3 on the board before we’d even strayed forward. Josh Kennedy, Daniel Hanneberry and co ran amok with no Hawthorn strong bodies to compete against them in the middle.

Sydney’s lead got out to more than four goals half way through the second before Jonathan Simpkin, Luke Breust and David Hale added the last three goals of the half to get the Hawks back in the match.  At this stage, however, Buddy was doing as much as anyone in the brown and gold to keep the Hawks in the match. His six first half behinds could have settled the match already, so it was good to see signs that the guilt was kicking in, just as his kicking was going astray. Perhaps the universe was telling him something.

The Twang and the Tongue

You couldn’t hear it over the chatter but Cyril Rioli’s hamstring twanged in the first minute of the third quarter. Cyril snaps his hamstring with more or less the same frequency that Keith Richards breaks guitar strings. So no Mitchell, Hodge, Lake and now Rioli off - if the universe was telling Buddy something, it was beating Hawks fans sadistically about the face and head with an unwelcome message.

Then Roughead collected Sydney’s Ben McGlynn with a bump and it looked like we’d have virtually an All-Australian line-up on the sidelines for our next match.

Riloi’s exit brought new boy Billy ‘The Tongue’ Hartung into the fray and The Tongue continued with the fine form he showed on debut the week before. The Hawks even began to get on top, or were at least breaking even, largely due to Burgoyne and Gibson, and when Suckling, Breust and even Taylor Duryea banged through goals Hawks fans were able to momentarily believe, or at least get in another pint of Kosciusko.

A new crew joined us in our corner, including some Hawks fans. One of them, Scott, impressed me immediately with his willingness to shout abuse at the television and his utter lack of compunction when it came to shouting the C-bomb loudly in public. It made mine and Chan-Tha’s behaviour seem measured and reasonable by comparison. It also egged us on to get more involved, despite being several hundred kilometres from the action.  And we had to get involved because from early in the final quarter it was obvious the Hawks boys were exhausted and hurt, and the Swans were getting back on top.

Teams often finish matches the way they begin, regardless of what has transpired in the intervening quarters, so it wasn’t a surprise when the Swans kicked away. Nor was it a surprise that Buddy’s two goals were instrumental in Sydney winning.

The final margin was 19 points, but the real margin was the million or so dollars difference between Sydney’s annual salary cap and that which is afforded the rest of the competition.

Final scores: Sydney 15  17  107 d  Hawthorn 13  10  88

Attendance:

Ladder position – 2nd


What we learned: the complexities of the Match Review Panel have now been clarified. Last week Melbourne’s Jack Viney was originally suspended and then ultimately cleared after he bumped Adelaide’s Tom Lynch who sustained a broken jaw.

This week Jarryd Roughead was suspended for one match for bumping Sydney’s Ben McGlynn, who barely felt it and continued playing. Had Roughy broken McGlynn’s jaw he could have escaped sanction. The lesson from the tribunal is simple: Roughy didn’t hit him hard enough.


What we already knew: You can’t take Hodge, Mitchell, Sewell, Lake, Rioli and Shiels from the team and not expect some backwash. Take out Roughead for the next match against Port and watching the Hawks over the next few week will be a little like seeing one of those bands that reunites without the singer or lead guitarist from the original line-up, like the Rolling Stones with just Ronnie Wood from the current line-up.


What we knew but didn't realise the extent of: That the beard is back is nothing new, you only have to look at the players from Sydney, but tuning into Eurovision on the weekend made me realise just how far this trend has reached when I saw a bearded lady take the trophy and belt out the winning tune. 'Conchita' would fit nicely into the Swans line-up with that beard, and she could replace that old guy who leads the singing of their club song after victories. Plus, I suspect, take Oxford Street by storm.

Round 7 - Hawthorn v St Kilda

Round 7 – Hawthorn v St.Kilda
MCG, Saturday 3 May 2014

The Biggest Loser

Despite belting the Saints by a massive 145 points on Saturday, it is arguable that Hawthorn was the biggest loser, with Sam Mitchell and Brian Lake both sustaining injuries that will see them sidelined for prolonged stretches. Mitchell’s injury in particular is a serious blow, perhaps catastrophic.

The Mitchell Effect

At least it is brown and gold

In Chaos theory, the Butterfly Effect describes the situation whereby a minor event in one place can have exponential repercussions that cause a major event in a distant location. The theoretical scenario from which the phenomena derives its name involves the situation where a butterfly flapping its wings in one place sets off a series of events that eventually cause a cyclone to form in a distant locale, with the potential for mass devastation.

Sam Mitchell’s injury is the same - a seemingly minor inconvenience in a contest causing a major tear in his hamstring that will see him miss eight crucial matches during the season, potentially hindering his conditioning and effectiveness when he returns, thus affecting our midfield clearances and onfield strength, with the upshot that it could disrupt, even derail our premiership campaign catastrophically, which may plunge Hawks fans into some sort of existential crisis that could see them questioning the point of going on, which might draw them into a downward spiral of depression that could lead to widespread social problems including domestic disharmony, loss of faith, drug dependency, psychotic episodes, or even a mass suicide pact. Not that I want to be alarmist. Perhaps we should rename it the Mitchell Effect for Sam Mitchell, though much shorter, leaves a bigger gap in our team than Buddy.

The Comeback Kid

Of course as one man goes down, another comes back in…and the man in question had been out of the game for some time, but slotted straight back in looking fitter and stronger than ever. And he hadn’t lost his touch, nailing three or four by half-time. It was like he’d never been away. Of course I’m referring to my friend Jason who has been living in London. This was the first live Hawks game he’d been to in three years and there he was in the Bullring bar in the Member’s sinking schooners of Matilda Bay’s finest as effortlessly as Hawthorn’s forwards were slotting goals.

For the remainder of his visit we’re playing a match in Sydney followed by a bye, so this was his only chance to see the browns and gold in action. And we virtually kicked a season’s worth of goals, it was just that he saw it all on a monitor in the bar while we sat upstairs applauding goals.

Of course Ryan Schoenmakers was also playing his first game back for 12 months after a knee reconstruction. Unlike Jase, he was sinking goals and not only did he look fitter and stronger, but a tad poncier with one of those stupid looking blonde buns.

Those watching Channel 7’s broadcast of the match at home, or indeed in the bar, would have known him as the Comeback Kid, as Hamish McLachlan and Basil Zempalis insisted on calling him.  Meanwhile Jordan Lewis, playing his 200th game was referred to as the Milestone Man. I was waiting for them to refer to Billy Hartung playing his first game as the Debutant Dude, or Ben McEvoy and Shane Savage who had swapped clubs over the break as the Changeling Chaps.

Schoenmakers received a welcoming cheer when he got his first touch, and after Rioli ‘put one on top of his head’, as they say, the Cobbler duly converted and the first of several group hugs ensued. This routine was repeated when Hartung kicked one in the third quarter and Lewis slotted one in the final quarter.

Turncoats and raincoats

left to right: Rachel, Chan-Tha, moi & Oscar
wearing the heritage jumper

I was at the game with my son Oscar and had donned for the occasion my special number 3 jumper to celebrate Jordan Lewis’ 200th game. It’s from the heritage range a number of years ago and woven from nice warm wool that keeps me nice and toasty on cold days. How the players used to play in these doesn’t bear thinking about. It’s the sort of garment that would come in handy on a trek to the South Pole.

By the time Chan-Tha arrived with Alex, Jason and Rachel, the rain had begun and we’d moved undercover.

The result of the match was more or less clear half way through the first quarter when Hawthorn had almost effortlessly kicked five goals while St Kilda had barely crossed the centre.

Interestingly, the day after Dale Thomas, playing for Carlton against his former team Collingwood, had been booed and jeered relentlessly by Magpies fans, St Kilda fans were far gentler with former Saint Ben McEvoy playing his first game against them. I didn’t hear a single heckle, just an exasperated moan of quiet despair late in the third quarter from a Saints fan sitting behind me as McEvoy took his umpteenth uncontested mark. Most likely they didn’t blame him for coming to Hawthorn, and there were probably a few fans who wished they’d done the same.

It also has to be said that Hawthorn fans did not boo Shane Savage, although this may simply have been because he wasn’t getting any possessions.

St Kilda was barely competitive in the first quarter and simply non-combative in the second, unless you’re talking about head high tackles. They dished out two early, in front of our goals, one to Jarryd Roughead and one to the Poo which was so crude he didn’t even have to accentuate it with his usual theatrical flourish.

The rain grew heavier and the conditions worsened in the second quarter which made scoring difficult, or at least less easy for Hawthorn and downright impossible in St Kilda’s case. Hawthorn added a few more for the half, but St Kilda didn’t score a single behind for the quarter, and didn’t even get it inside their own 50 metre arc until the time-on period.

By half time the margin was 58 points and it looked like only rain or Hawthorn’s disinterest would prevent the margin from doubling.

Hawthorn Porn

Tempting as it was to stay in the Bullring bar, where it was surprisingly easy to get served, most of us headed back to the seats to take in the third quarter and I’m glad we did, for the Hawks romped. It was like Hawthorn porn.

The first goal of the quarter went to Jack Billings of the Saints, who took a free kick deep in the Member’s pocket from where he slotted a very nice goal. He also took a strong contested mark and tackled well during the match. In a search for positives, that might otherwise yield as little as the United Nations search for WMDs in Iraq, St Kilda can at least look to young Billings.

From there though, it rained Hawthorn goals, a deluge in fact – 10 for the quarter to none. Brian Lake joined Mitchell in Casualty but despite being two men down, the Hawks just clicked into gear and went for it. Much has been made of our spread of goal kickers this year, and this quarter served to highlight it, with eight separate players bagging a goal with Roughead and Cyril getting two each. Cyril’s were both from the ‘delicious’ playbook and generated the biggest roar, while the next biggest roar came when debutant Billy Hartung snagged one.

Hartung looks like he’ll be a good player, although it might be difficult to judge him against this opposition. He’d have faced tougher teams playing for Box Hill in the VFL.

In fairness St Kilda also had an even spread of goal kickers; it’s just that there were only four of them.

When Burgoyne, Breust and Gunston each added a goal in the first three minutes of the final quarter, the lead was out to 131 points and at this rate the final margin looked like it might get beyond 200.  But then the rain started again, so we stayed put in the Bullring, where we took in the few remaining highlights, most notable among them being a goal to Jordan Lewis.

The final margin of 145 points was a fair indicator of the difference between the two teams. I’ve rarely seen a starker mismatch. What most amazed me was St Kilda’s unwillingness to change the game. Hawthorn was executing a fairly predictable pattern every time they gained possession backward of the centre or the wing; that was to bring it around the backline in an arc with a series of passes to players who were always free. Then they’d take it up the opposite wing until a clear target was freed up.

If I could spot the pattern, surely the St Kilda coach could, or some of their experienced players, and work so that they blocked it off. But they never did and the margin simply continued to grow, nearly trebling in the second half.  The following day my youngest son’s under 12 soccer team was 0-6 down at half time, which in soccer terms is about the equivalent of 58 points, but these U12 boys with no subs kept fighting and actually won the second half 2-1. Sure they lost the game 2-7, but they showed more spirit and fight than
St Kilda.

Final scores: Hawthorn 27. 13. 175. d St Kilda 4. 6. 30.

Ladder position: 1st

Attendance: 32,924

What we learned: We all know Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson's routine at the end of the match when the Hawks win; he takes one of the little footballs, jogs to the fence and points to a fan to single them out and signs the ball for them. It is of course invariably a young fan so you can imagine my blushes when he seemingly pointed at me and motioned for me to join him at the fence. In my heart of course I knew he was signalling the young girl just to my right, so I graciously let her through.

What we learned however is what he writes on the ball. We’ve all seen that Clarko takes a bit of time over this procedure, so I always assumed he scrawled a personal message, perhaps a dedication, an inspirational motto or even a line of poetry, but no, he writes the score. Look, Chan-Tha got a photo. 175 to 30 - I suppose you can't get more poetic than that. We also found out the girl is in the same class as Clarko’s daughter at school. So even in this it comes down to who you know…

What we already knew: Clarko takes it seriously. As Jack Steven kicked St Kilda's fourth goal for the game, deep into the final quarter, a shot of Clarko in the box with his head in his hands in seeming anguish, despite the Hawks holding a lead of 139 points, drew an audible laugh from around the ground.