Bit of Hollywood, loads of heart 💛
Our campaign off to a flyer against the Swans
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ROUND 0: SYDNEY 11.10 76, HAWTHORN 14.12 96
L 76 | L 81 | L 41 |
These were our last three margins against the Swans, but the Hawks are a different proposition now. In wet conditions on Sydney’s home turf, the Hawks absorbed whatever the Swans threw at them, holding onto a gutsy 20-point win.
There was a lot to love about this performance:
The heroics of our swingman captain, whose fourth quarter cameo turned the game;
The addition of Tom Barrass and Josh Battle — hereafter known as JBTB — that allowed that to even happen;
Will Day adding goals to his game and three Brownlow medal votes to his haul;
Meek Monday coming three days early;
A gutsy chase down and clutch goal from Connor Macdonald in an otherwise quiet game;
Our wet weather specialists Conor Nash and Jai Newcombe getting busy in the absence of Worps and with the whips cracking; and
Basically everyone to a man playing their part.
All up a huge statement win that sends a message to the comp: this Hawthorn side isn’t just about the HOKball, it’s about the heart as well.
Reckon Sammy enjoyed that one, don’t you?
🕵🏻♂️ Danny and Nat take it apart
DANNY: First half was pure HOKball. Fast, clean, electric. The game was won in the last quarter through guts and determination.
NAT: Yeah, we were up for the contest from the start. That was my main worry post-preseason, where the mids had started so slowly. It’s so critical at the SCG, where the game is won and lost out of centre bounce. But it was clear from the get-go that we had come to play around the ball.
DANNY: The mids were huge. Will Day was the obvious standout at half-time, but Worpel (until his untimely injury), Newcombe, Nash (especially post-Worpel’s injury), and Mackenzie all played their part.
NAT: Thought Conor Nash’s second half after Worpel went off was massive. Won the big ground ball for Chol’s goal early in Q3, then kicked the goal that stopped the Swans' run of four and ensured we kept the lead into three-quarter time. When the rain came in the last quarter, his big body didn’t get any smaller. How’s his tackle on Florent late in the game? Ooft.
DANNY: Lloyd Meek was exceptional to half-time, absolutely slaughtering Brodie Grundy. And even though Grundy battled back into the game, Meek had big moments in the second half that helped seal the win.
NAT: Will Day’s first half was imperious and gave a proper warning to the comp of how good he can be. His next challenge is now finding a way to work through the attention that will no doubt come with this. I know the Swans were missing Gulden and Mills, but to win clearances by 14, contested ball by 12, and to have 18 more inside 50s is such a big tick from our midfield against a side that won 17 games last year.
NAT: Worpel’s injury — let’s hope for the milder end of the syndesmosis spectrum —does hurt. He was terrific in the first half, five clearances, and it does leave us a bit thin on a line where we don’t have a heap of upper-echelon depth. On the positive —Josh Ward, here is your inside mid chance!
DANNY: Sam Frost was arguably Hawthorn’s most consistent key defender last season, and he started as the sub tonight. In the end, it paid off, but it’s a risk I wouldn’t take again.
DANNY: Welcome to the TB and JB era. Tom Barrass and Josh Battle are exceptional defenders in their own right, but the flexibility they offer Mitchell is where the money is.
NAT: We looked after the ball out of defence extremely well. The Swans didn’t kick a goal from a front-half turnover — and they were the highest-scoring side in the comp from this source in 2024. Our field kicking is such an asset.
DANNY: The intercept marking and pinpoint kicking of Jack Scrimshaw. That’s it. That’s the observation.
NAT: Karl Amon was really good all night. I just feel calm when he has the ball?
DANNY: He might have kicked goal of the year, and we’re not even at Round 1 yet.
NAT: It will take some time, but our forward line is still incredibly clunky. Understandable with the new additions down back that magnets are being moved, and it will take time to gel. But it would be nice to get a reasonably settled unit as quickly as we can.
NAT: Despite his first half in defence, I’m still firmly in the Sicily-forward camp. We saw in the last quarter how much of a difference he can make — three big marks inside 50, kicks the sealer (should’ve been two — what was that play-on?!). I just believe with the JB/TB show down back, we’re OK in that area, and he might be the difference up forward.
DANNY: James Sicily is an incredible defender, and James Sicily is an incredible forward. How’s cloning tracking?
NAT: We got next to nothing out of three of our four small forwards (Moore the exception) and still kicked 14.12. Getting goals out of the mids is huge on a night where it’s not all flowing.
DANNY: Goals from the midfield were one of the things the Hawks needed to find improvement on from last season. Seven goals tonight is a fantastic start.
NAT: I’m a little concerned about Ginni’s body. He looks a touch slow to me? We know he’s had an interrupted pre-season with his groin and ankle issues — hopefully, he’s better for the run, because we need him. And if Finn Maginness is going to play as a defensive forward, he cannot be missing tackles. He doesn’t have the forward craft or the natural skill to afford to have this part of his game not being spot on.
DANNY: Being challenged in the fashion that we were, absorbing a punch, steadying the ship, and putting in an extremely workmanlike last term to win the game was an incredibly good sign. Top of the table, 1-0 in the win/loss column, Will Day leading the Brownlow and the Coleman. Life is good.
⭐️ Best on ground: Will Day
What more can you say? A complete midfield performance. He was curtailed somewhat by a second half tag, but found a way to At this pace, if he stays healthy
💫 Rising star: Cam Mackenzie
The Hawks youngster had a slow start to the game, with just the five touches to half time. He responded when Worpel went down, with 11 second half disposals, including 7 important touches in the final quarter. Consistency across four quarters is his next challenge.
👼 Unsung hero: Jack Scrimshaw
Let’s be honest, this could have been a number of players including Barrass, Meek, Moore and Nash but we’ve landed on Scrimshaw, who has developed into one of the most reliable players in the team. It doesn’t matter if the ball comes in aerially or on the ground, Scrimshaw is adept at nullifying the threat either way. Oh and that kick 🥵
🤯 Under pressure: Finn Maginness
We hate making these calls, especially before Round 1 😅 but Maginness struggled and the forward set up was dysfunctional at times. To stay in the team, Maginness has to be smarter about putting and keeping the ball in dangerous forward areas, and he has to stick his tackles. Simple as that.
😊 What’s making Brad angry happy
🎤 Sammy said what!?
“We’ve tried to put last year behind us. Everyone wants to talk about the past all the time.”
“For us we know that we need to get better, we need to improve.”
“The thing from last season that we took out of it was it showed us some evidence that when we do work hard and we’re working towards something, that helps us make improvements to our game.”
“We’re going to have to be better than we were and we’re going to have to be better than where we are right now.”
“I thought the team handled the pressure of the game and the consistency of the pressure of the game.”
“It looked intense the whole time. I think the fact that we handled that gives us a bit of validation there.”
“I wasn’t sure about the left-foot snap. I’ve never seen him do one of those.”
“The flexibility in the team is something that we know we can call on but it’s not something we want to use all the time.”
“Once we lost Worps it meant we had to make a bit of a change. We pushed Weddle forward and I thought he did a fantastic job.”
“When you think about Weddle and Sicily both changing positions pretty regularly and Sic, he’s been around a while so we expect him to do it well, and he did a fantastic job again.”
🗣️ Final words:
“To put up the performance like that, it's a great reinforcement of the group and the maturity that we've grown as a team. I think we put on a really good, I guess, four quarter performance.
“They obviously challenged us in the third quarter, which was a test for the group. But I think we, you know, we really pulled it back in the fourth quarter and had a good result.” - Karl Amon on SEN.
⏭️ Next week:
The AFL and the Hawks were predicting 70,000 at the MCG Friday night with the caveat that a win over the Swans might bump that figure up a bit. It might now be close to 80,000.
Essendon tends to be at its best early in the season and the Bombers are riding, what is for Hawthorn, an unacceptable four-game winning streak against us into this game, so this will be a week and most likely a game of high anxiety.
Josh Ward for James Worpel shapes as the only change for next week. Worpel has re-emerged as prime mover for the Hawks and we will miss him, but Ward’s brilliant performance on the big stage in last year’s elimination final suggests he will be a more than capable replacement.
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What we know - Rules of Coaching
1. Give your team its best chance to win.
2. Don’t get beaten by what you know.
3. Progression is not linear.
What was learnt.
• The midfield Big 4 came to play –
a) recalling how poorly our mids, except for Worpel, performed in the first five rounds last year, it was clear that they came to play. This was best demonstrated in the way they were able to close down the Swans’ mids e.g. knocking down handballs when the Swans looked to distribute on the first possession. No doubt the dominance of Meek in the first half was an important part of being able to exert this pressure.
b) Worpel started the game as he did last year and found a more than willing partner in Day early which gave us forward half dominance. The Swans forays forward early were definitively efficient, but sporadic. When Worpel was hurt, Nash took up his mantle whilst Newcombe made some important contributions along the way.
• The template for Sicily as the ultimate disruptor – A key part of the pre-season musings was what role Sicily would play back or forward? Obviously, he started back and with his ability to intercept the forward entries to the point where the Swans had to put Hayward, who is a more than handy forward, on him in the 3rd quarter which coincided with the impact of Worpel’s injury unsettling the midfield for that period of the game, giving Swans their dominance for this period of the game. Mitchell then looking to win the game threw him forward in the last quarter which created another mismatch for the Swans.
• The recruitment of Amon is now paying its dividends – When Amon was recruited on a five-year contract, many Hawks’ fans were wondering why we’d give such an offer to who was seen to be a handy player rather than an elite one (notwithstanding that in his last year at Port he polled 15 votes in the Brownlow). What is now evident that as the quality of the playing group around him has improved, he has been able to display his elite qualities i.e. decision-making/footy IQ and execution by foot to the best advantage of the team.
• Controlled the tempo of the game – There looked to be a further level of maturity within the team as they were able to control the tempo of the game at a couple of stages in the match where the Swans had (or looked to) created momentum. The first was in the last 5-10 minutes of the 2nd quarter which we had dominated to that point in time – they did kick one goal in red time, which was a scrambled effort from Rowbottom from 40m out. Then again, the last 5 minutes of the 3rd quarter where the Swans had the momentum in the game and on the scoreboard, we were able to ensure that we went into the last quarter with a slim lead and quell the crowd with the ¾ time break.
• Being hurt on turnover is the most obvious defensive weakness – With the Hawk wave in flow, there is a need to ensure that turnovers happen as deep as possible inside F50 otherwise, the backs need to be really on their own game structurally.
Observations:
• Frost as sub was the probably the 4th-5th option before the team was selected, it was a very interesting call because of the limited alternatives he directly offered. This means that other players must make the significant adjustments when he came on. If a midfielder had gone down in the first quarter, there may have been a very different impact on the way the game played out.
• Meek played his best half of football in the brown and gold – it has to be noted that his 2nd half only had 8 of his 30 hit outs. (One of which was against Heeney while Grundy put his boo back on!)
• If Massimo was “Mitch’s Muppet’ in the Full Sweat doco, with his inability to turn on to the right side of his body, Mackenzie (50% KE) may well be the next one his list to address this issue – going left.
• Another pre-season issue was where does Weddle play? As Mitchell noted in his presser, he went forward in the 3rd and whilst Mitch noted has an “unusual” playing style, but still felt he made a positive contribution, however for the moment, he appears to better suited behind the ball. The other aspect to Mitch’s comment is that for those with the ball looking to connect to someone who has an “unusual” style, the level of understanding needs to be strong. We won the inside 50 count 15-10, but the lost the quarter 5.1 to 2.4 – same number of scoring shots??
• When Sicily goes forward, he makes riskier decisions than he does as a defender e.g. the handball to Maginness in the goal square and the attempted entry from the set play kick in where he was the last link in the chain.
• Battle had a couple of moments which were more a matter of developing trust in his new teammates – 2nd quarter the late sling tackle/free kick on Amartey; a couple of minutes later, he gave a 30m handball out to the defensive 50 which the Swans had the wall set; and then late in the game taking a shot from inside the centre square.
• Maginness on a few occasions was part of marking contests when he was required to play as the crumbing forward which he had done well in the pre-season.
• It may not be your day; but it can be your moment – CMac wasn’t able to impose himself across the course of the game but popped up to kick a crucial goal and great chase down.
Starting 4
1st Qrt: Day (16) Newcombe (22) Worpel (13)
2nd Qrt: Nash (22) Day Newcombe
3rd Qrt Day Newcombe Nash
4th Qrt Day Newcombe Nash
(Meek 25; Mackenzie 9; Moore 5; Chol 4)
Issue for the week
The impact of Worpel’s injury – even if the injury is a short-term one (2-3 weeks), how the team balance is maintained will be significant. Leaving aside Day’s absence, this may be the first lengthy absence of another one of the “Big 4”. The issue this year is that the game plan looks to have Day spending time forward, as a pseudo centre half forward, as a key means of addressing Dear’s & Lewis’s absences. This still allows Newcombe, Nash & Worpel to maintain an experienced midfield contribution with two of them working with one of Mackenzie or Moore as part of a rotation, particularly when Nash gives Meek a chop out. With Worpel out and Nash in the ruck, this would have Newcombe with Mackenzie and then say Ward (replacing Worpel) or Moore as the midfield combination. Does this mean that Weddle takes the chop out ruck role*? This would allow Newcombe & Nash to remain as key parts of the midfield rotation with Mackenzie and probably Ward as the supporting acts.
(* in the 3rd quarter, Weddle did take a few ruck contests against McInerney when Nash was off the ground.)
I think the Finn criticism is harsh. 3 scoring shots. Wasn't alone in missed tackles. Allows flexibility in that he can play in all thirds.