Back-to-back baby!
Better than a win - that's two on the trot
ROUND 21: HAWTHORN 97, COLLINGWOOD 78
📝 Main recap: It’s wasn’t all that long ago when back-to-back flags were a measure of success for the Hawthorn footy club - not back-to-back wins. But as we stare down the end of a disappointing, disrupted and tumultuous season, a pair of victories on the trot might just be as good as it gets for a season to forget.
Our first pair of wins since rounds three and four of the 2020 season is a pretty damning stat on paper. But when you consider it’s off the back of a coaching succession plan implosion that played out very publicly, and with some of our best players missing, you wouldn’t really blame this group for going into their shell and playing for picks.
But that wasn’t the case at our traditional time slot of 2.10pm on Sunday. This was a strong four quarter performance from Clarko’s heroes - the green shoots and the senior servants combined - and aside from the obligatory late charge from Collingwood (similar to the Lions last week), we bossed this match from the opening quarter, controlled the tempo, moved the ball quickly and aggressively, and outworked the Pies across the ground.
Why couldn’t we play like this when it counted? That’ll be Sam Mitchell’s challenge next year.
Whether they were playing for Clarko or for pride, Hawthorn just wanted it more on the day. We’ll take you through some snippets in a moment, but one passage of play in the third quarter really epitomises the hunger they had for the W on the day.
It happened about midway through the third quarter when Mitch Lewis and the returning Harry Morrison kept a lost cause alive on the boundary. Morrison’s quick hands delivered it to Moore, who fired off an instinctive handpass to Kosi, who in turn checksided it through for a beautifully scrappy goal.
It was one of the best of our 15 goals on an afternoon that saw some real promise as we head into the final rounds of the season.
Other things we just loved to see:
Dylan Moore’s emergence as our answer to Toby Greene (minus the d-bag behaviour), with 20 disposals, four goal assists, two goals, and 11 score involvements. Where’s the bloody contract?
Conor Nash’s Sam Mitchell-inspired renaissance in the middle;
Jack Scrimshaw developing into an All-Australian quality backman and getting forward to kick a beautiful goal on the run (see below);
Frostball actually paying off;
Mitch Lewis and Kosi starting to make defenders nervous with their marking and aggression;
Dimma Hardwick being elite as usual in his 100th game.
It’s clear we’re playing for pride not picks, and with highly touted draft prospect Jason Horne now looking like he’s North Melbourne bound, then why the hell not end this annus horribilis on a high?
✂️ Snippet of the match I
So many brilliant passages of play with slow, considered team build-ups into forays forward. This one actually started deeper in the backline but culminated in Scrimma running inside 50 and sending the ball straight over the goal umpire’s head. It was the moment of free-flowing fast football like this that has us believing that sustained season long success is not far away.
✂️ Snippet of the match II
There were so many moments but this play showcased individual feats of perfection from captain Ben McEvoy and midfield BULL Conor Nash. Big Boy rucking inside the forward 50 gets the perfect backhanded tap down from the ruck contest directly into the path of a full speed Nash, who collects, steadies, and snaps truly for a wonderful goal.
🍔 Ash’s 10 key takeaways (when we win, you get 10!)
Welcome to Hawks Insiders where every Hawthorn performance for the remainder of the year won’t be viewed solely through the prism of what they mean for Alastair Clarkson’s prospects of coaching Collingwood, Carlton, Manchester United, Caulfield Grammarians or any other football club in 2022.
One media outlet talked about the win over the Pies as Clarkson’s “perfect audition” for the vacant Pies job. The AFL website could come up with nothing better than the tired and cliched “masterclass”. Back in the old days, the sub-editor would have read that copy, screwed up the paper, thrown it back at the reporter and demanded he do better. The fact is that with 13 wins over the Pies in the last 15 encounters, Hawthorn is the better team and the players demonstrated as such once again at the MCG on Sunday. Any and all attempts to bring everything back to Clarkson is lazy and uninformed. Which is why you are reading this.
What the Pies don’t have is an answer to Tom Mitchell. That’s where the masterclass came on Sunday. 44 touches as Robert Harvey continued the age-old Collingwood coaching tradition of not paying him due respect. Mitchell has had a great second half of the season and a third Peter Crimmins Medal now seems his for the keeping. And he is closing in fast on All-Australian selection.
The irony is that just as Clarkson finishes up, the three players Hawthorn sold the farm for and whose recruitment he was most criticised for – Mitchell, Chad Wingard and Jaeger O’Meara – are all in great form at the same time. Cannot wait to see how they stack up against the Western Bulldogs, perhaps the best in the business, next week.
Kyle Hartigan can always be counted on for one brain fart a week. You just want to close your eyes and break the remote control when he does it but lately, the good outweighs the bad. He’s no Chris Langford, Kelvin Moore or Brian Lake, but he gets the job done. I’m warming to him.
Admittedly there were a couple of Hawk-friendly types on the Fox commentary on Sunday – Jason Dunstall and Jordan Lewis – but the praise for Lachie Bramble was plain to see. He’s not Hawthorn’s tightly-held secret anymore, but it will likely not be until next season that teams start to put serious work into him.
One key to beating Collingwood is to really give Brodie Grundy a seriously physical working over. For that reason, Jon Ceglar was a better selection this week than Ned Reeves. Sorry, Brad. But it won’t be the case for too much longer.
Otherwise, it was a ‘meh’ game of footy and not all that exciting. This winning two games on the trot caper very is nice and Clarkson keeps banging on about the final month of 2006 when the Hawks went 4-0. The last of those games was against Geelong at Marvel Stadium, which was John Barker’s final game and turned out to be one of the great days at the footy. Wonder whether the scene is being set for another memorable season finale in a fortnight’s time.
That’s 56 years and counting since Hawthorn last claimed a wooden spoon. North, Adelaide or even the Pies can have it, thank you very much.
Thoughts and prayers are with the great Paul Dear. I’ll have more to say about him this week.
Superstar/Rising Star/Falling Star
⭐️ Superstar - Tom Mitchell
All set to become a three-time Peter Crimmins Medallist, Mitchell was incredible at the MCG against a Pies outfit that he adores. Titch has career best average disposals against the Pies and career best Brownlow votes against them too - he just loves playing them. It wasn’t hard to see why - our number three amassing 44 touches (ranked first) at 84% disposal efficiency, 10 marks (third), a goal, 12 score involvements (first), eight clearances (first) and seven inside-50s (first). Elite. Dictionary. Tom Mitchell.
💫 Rising star - Conor Nash
All hail our Box Hill coach (what’s his name again?) who had the foresight to play our hulking Irishman in the middle. And finally we get to see that role carried into the seniors, where Nash backed up his great performance against the Lions last week with another commanding display against the Pies. Nash had a team high five tackles, had four clearances, 20 touches and seven score involvements - as well as running on to an elite Ben McEvoy palm down to snap truly. Hopefully he can make it three decent performances on the trot when we take on the Dogs next week.
🤷♂️ Falling star - Harry Morrison
Poor Harry. He was having a wonderful season through the first half of the year before injury set him back and by a fair way it seems. Just didn’t have the polish or run we saw earlier in 2021 and had a couple of great opportunities to impact the scoreboard which he didn’t seize. Will need a couple of good games coming up (if selected) to get the confidence high heading into the 2022 pre-season.
Unsung Heroes & Scapegoat
👼 Unsung Hero: Blake Hardwick
Dimma celebrated his 100th in style, with another hard working performance where he hardly put a foot wrong. Negated the influence of Collingwood’s small forwards, and then also hurt them on the rebound with 467 metres gained. Few have been more consistent in their first 100 games of footy, and it just beggars belief he’s still just 24. We love you Dimma. Never change.
🔪 🐐 Scapegoat: Ollie Hanrahan
A disappointing outing from Ollie, who earned his place back in the lineup after some ripping form in the middle at Box Hill (including 35 touches in our win against the Pies). Swung between half forward and half back but struggled to get involved with just nine touches and four score involvements.
The Obligatory Ladder Check-In
Up to 15th on the ladder after back-to-back wins and we are every chance to finish higher if we can pull off a sneaky victory against the Tigers in the last round to farewell Clarko and Silk. Still guaranteed to have at least three picks inside the top 25 at the next draft.
Current forecast 2022 draft picks of note: #4, #21 (Collingwood’s second round selection) #22.
News & Notes
Will Day and Changkuoth Jiath have been some notable absentees as our season peters out. But just because they weren’t out there on the ground, doesn’t mean they weren’t supporting the boys from the comfort of their lounge rooms at home.
Shaun Burgoyne has now kicked at least one goal in each of his 20 seasons in the AFL. It’s an extraordinary stat that cements our Silk even further as one of the all-time greats.
Tom Mitchell’s 44 disposals sees him go clear at the top of the AFL disposals table with 691 at an average of 34.6, leading Jack Macrae (683) and Ollie Wines (641). We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again - our Titch is elite.
Clarko Press Conference Bingo
✅ That was pleasing
✅ We’ll go to the draft
✅ It will be a slow build
✅ On the right track
✅ Stick fat
What They Said
🗣️ Dylan Moore
“It was actually a great effort from the boys - we knew it was going to be a tough fight all day and we put all our eggs in one basket.
“First quarter we were just like, let’s just get ourselves into the game and try and own the noise since there was no-one here, and it kind of worked for the first quarter and then we could hold on for the rest of the match so it was really exciting.
“I thought I did alright - played my role and I try and play my role every week and luckily today I kicked a couple, missed an absolute soda from the top of the goal square, but I feel like I’m going alright.
“Hopefully we can get two more wins - that would be absolutely amazing and then give us some momentum going into next year and really give us some belief that we can contend with some of the top sides.”
🗣️ Tom Mitchell
“We haven’t had back-to-back wins for a fair while so it was a focus going into this week - we called it like a yo-you, we were a bit up and down all the time.
“But we had a really good win against Brisbane last week and it was pleasing that we backed it up today against the Pies. Dimma Hardwick’s 100th game - I’m looking at him right now, and I’m glad we got a win for him too.
“We just want to keep improving our team defence, the way we move the ball, our stuff around the contest, and I think as well to give Clarko a really nice send off this last month of the season - so we have got two wins now and hopefully there are two more to come.”
🗣️ Blake Hardwick
“It was good - we obviously had a pretty good start and in the last half we just had to sort of hold on a bit I guess, and the boys did that so I am pretty stoked.
“I don’t think we had had two wins in a row for a while, so that was the plan and the aim, and to get that done - obviously we haven’t had the sort of year that we would have liked, but to get two in a row makes us pretty happy at this stage of the year.
“It’s just about building momentum into next year I guess. We have got a lot of young boys in the team so just getting the confidence up in the last two weeks against two pretty good teams, that would I think build a lot of confidence in those young guys for next year.”
Thanks. Also tired of the "Clarkson masterclass" meme.
A good win. Magpies have some good developing talent and they have also shown something in 2021.
Disappointing year for the Hawks? What was the expectation for 2021? St Kilda has had a disappointing year, ditto West Coast.
What was the expectation for Hawthorn? Around 7 wins and blooded about 9 debs. Realistically that has to be about where they should be.
2006 is not unrealistic although I would say the next serious flag tilt is more likely 2024 than 2023 - but who knows? - one thing about Clarko - he's probably a better judge then me.