Dissecting the Dee-molition
Can anyone explain that first quarter?
Subscribe to Hawks Insiders for the best brown and gold coverage in the business - including exclusive interviews, analysis, match recaps, and pods.
ROUND 2: HAWTHORN 5.8 (38), MELBOURNE 14.9 (93)
📝 Main recap:
Sam Frost has been a whipping boy for the fans since his move from Melbourne in 2020. At times, it’s been warranted. But it’s also overlooked some rock solid defensive performances and the leadership he brings off the field.
In the absence of James Blanck, Frost has started the year really well. But with 40 seconds left in the final quarter and with Hawthorn 55 points down to the Demons, he dropped an absolute soda that summed up one of the worst days at the footy in recent memory.
While it may seem unfair to single out Frost in a single moment across a game he mostly played well in, it’s the non-competitive manner in which Hawthorn ran out the match — epitomised by the Frost brain fade — that was really disappointing.
And if that was bad – may we present to you Exhibit A: the first quarter.
The Hawks went in with a clear game plan of playing possession footy, racking up a mound of marks (53!) and possessions across the back half of the ground. But the transition forward into the half-forward line is where it all broke down and Melbourne duly took advantage, leading the inside-50 count by nine at the quarter and shooting out to a five goal lead that the Hawks never really looked like clawing back. At times it felt like we were sitting ducks, with the Dees setting up behind the ball, ready to pounce when things inevitably broke down.
For the second week running, we were smashed again in centre clearances, directly resulting in nine Melbourne goals and recalling the worst of the O’Meara and Mitchell era where we just couldn’t get our hands on it.
For the past two weeks now we’ve lost centre clearances by +9. Jai Newcombe and Conor Nash — a huge part of our midfield turnaround in 2023 — need to arrest their form slump quickly if we’re going to have any chance of being competitive until Will Day’s return.
We’ve had heavier losses than this in 2023, but 2024 was supposed to be the season we turned the dial up and played games on our own terms.
Where was the plucky side that surprised the Lions, St Kilda and the Bulldogs and rolled Collingwood? Where was the dare of the team that nearly pulled off upset wins against Adelaide, GWS and Richmond?
Even our round 23 loss in the same fixture last year showed glimpses of a team on the rise. As a reminder: We were in it right up until the last few minutes when the Dees kicked away.
The optimists within the Hawks Insiders crew may point to the fact it’s just round two, but with Geelong, Collingwood and the Suns looming, this felt like one of those games where that little devil on your shoulder pops his head up and whispers, “Is the rebuild still going to plan?”
Season 2024 is going to be an exercise in silencing that voice and holding your nerve.
🧐 Things we like to see — Cam Mackenzie
What a passage of play and full credit goes to Cam Mackenzie who had a decent game against the Demons. Needing to at least half a contest where Max Gawn was odds on to take a mark, Mackenzie did so much more than that. He won possession of the footy, remained calm as he assessed his options ahead and then put a perfect pass in to Mitch Lewis who went on to kick a great goal at the start of the fourth term. Brilliant individual effort.
🍒 You never forget your first — Nick Watson
The kick. The relief. The celebration. The love from his teammates. The first of many goals in the brown and gold for The Wiz and one of the few highlights on a bleak day at the MCG. There is something about this special kid and we have zero doubt that his career will be full of GIFs, highlights, and excitement — get on board!
💥 Ash goes whack
I sort of get what the Hawks were doing early, chipping the ball around defensively, and they got that part of the game right. But they had to take the right opportunities when they present and they had to do so with care for the ball, but they did neither. And that played right into Melbourne’s hands.
Did James Sicily play well? That’s the burning question for Hawthorn fans this week. He got plenty of the ball as the Hawks chipped it around and by three-quarter time he was arguably Hawthorn’s best. But he was taken to the cleaners by Bailey Fritsch in the last. Disappointing for Sic because he rebounded well from a poor opening round performance.
Really hard to identify good players for the Hawks. Josh Weddle played well after quarter-time, Mabior Chol is creating the sort of forward line presence the team needs, and his work in setting up that goal for Luke Breust was outstanding. But not a whole lot else to get excited about.
The midfield set-up is not working and changes are coming, with Sam Mitchell saying as much post-game. They are -18 in centre clearances through the opening two rounds and Will Day’s absence is critical. Time for Henry Hustwaite, methinks, just for a different look. And at least you know he will do the right thing with the ball. It was the right call top play Finn Maginness against the Dees, but there is no obvious match-up for him next week.
Whoever has taken off with our Jai Newcombe, could they please return him. Not enjoying this pale imitation.
Having said that, Melbourne’s midfield is from the top-shelf. Max Gawn, Christian Petracca, Jack Viney and Clayton Oliver have played close to 150 games together and it shows. All Hawthorn can is get games into its own midfield group and hope to have something for it in three years or so.
Seen enough from Nick Watson to know he will be a player, although he was developing a serious case of the yips before finally slotting his first goal in League footy. He brought some attitude on Saturday, jawing at the Dees and one stage tangling with Max Gawn, which was as ridiculous as it looked.
But the forward line is a work in progress and the chemistry is still not there. Good luck against Tom Stewart next week.
Leaving the MCG on Saturday evening and it was hard not to escape how things have changed. For so many years, Hawthorn would rock up to games against the Demons with the knowledge that something remarkable would need to happen not to win and win comfortably. But the worm has turned. The Hawks are Melbourne’s bunny now. And likely will be for some time yet, at least while Gawn, Petracca and Oliver remain at the peak of their powers.
Have we become Melbourne’s Daryll Cullinan? How the mighty have fallen. It was also apparent after the game that not only have the Hawks not improved on last year, they might have regressed. They are miles off the best teams in the competition, and that is a depressing thought given that autumn is only just starting and there is a whole winter to (not) look forward to.
⭐️ Best on ground — Josh Weddle
There were a couple of trademark moments where questions could be asked of his decision making or disposal efficiency, but in terms of his broader piece of work on the MCG on Saturday, Weddle was superb. The impressive addition to his bow this week was that he went forward and looked like a genuine centre-half forward at times. Finished with 10 marks and 21 touches including a goal — another great addition to his small career portfolio to date.
💫 Rising star — Nick Watson
Looked increasingly comfortable playing on the hallowed MCG turf, and despite kicking three behinds on the trot to go with his three minor scores last weehe finally nailed his first major. One goal and six behinds for his career - we are pretty confident there are many more goals to follow and it will be great to see him on the big stage against the Cats on Easter Monday.
👼 Unsung hero — Sam Frost
Yes, he dropped a soda late in the game, but Sam Frost had a more than serviceable game in a backline that looked dysfunctional at times. A commanding presence in defence and registered 15 disposals at … wait for it … 100% disposal efficiency, to go with his five marks. Was our rock in the backline and has put to decent games together on the trot.
🤯 Under pressure — Jack Gunston
May be a controversial call and was certainly a better sub selection than Finn Maginness in round one, but had zero impact on the game after being subbed in at the 11 minute mark of the third term. Finished his 50 (ish) minutes of game time with two touches, zero marks and will hopefully have a bigger impact bringing his experience into a full game against the Cats on Easter Monday.
👀 Box Hill watch — Lloyd Meek
Ned Reeves won the hitouts and arguably curtailed some of Gawn’s influence, but his lack of impact around the ground — he’s taken two marks in the opening two rounds — could pave the way for Lloyd Meek. Meek was one of the best for Box Hill with 26 hitouts, six marks, 15 disposals, and two goals.
📝 Comment of the week — is Mitch over cooking it?
📣 The big talking point — Have we gone backwards?
While it is nice to reflect on the positives from matches such as this one, it would be hard for anyone to argue that we have comprehensively improved on where we were at the end of last season. It is only round two and a quarter of our team are different from those that were playing by year’s end 2023, but performances over the next three weeks against Geelong, Collingwood and Gold Coast away will help to answer the question.
😡 Angry Brad’s early call
🎤 Sammy said what!?
“Two weeks in a row we have given up field position through centre-bounce and clearance work.”
“We knew we needed to not cough up the ball in the back half so we decided we needed to possess the ball a bit more.”
“We couldn’t penetrate the front half of the ground.”
“We couldn’t execute the plan.”
“They just wore us down and were so consistent across the four quarters.”
“Clear focus for us is to be able to sort out the centre bounces.”
“There will be some changes — whether that’s personnel or system or both.”
🗣️ Notable quotes — Jack Scrimshaw
“It was a disappointing result. It felt like we were in the game, but the middle of the ground hurt us in the end. We weren’t able to get on top of their quality players like Petracca, Oliver and Viney … It was hard for us to defend in the backline and eventually they got the better of us.
“We’ve got to stick tight as a group. We’re obviously up and coming. We have a few new guys coming into the club. We have a few days off so spending some time together. Just trying to stay positive. We’re quite optimistic as a group still. We’ve not going to let that affect our confidence … but use the next few days to recover well, spend time together and look forward to a good clash next week.”
Don’t forget to listen in as the HI team goes live on Wednesday nights on X (formerly Twitter) Spaces. Follow us on and Facebook (if you’re into that sort of thing) as well.
What was learnt:
1. “Don’t get beaten by what you know”: With the pre-game concerns about not kicking the ball to Gawn, May & Lever, the tactic of playing the football version of draughts/checkers in the first quarter looked to be the means of addressing this concern. The issue then became the capacity of the players to implement the tactic in a meaningful way which proved to be a failure of execution or the tactic was beyond the capacity of the playing group, which means that there are “limits”. The inability to seize the moment to move the ball forward or not turnover the key kick became the issue. Whilst the theme of “no limits” is admirable, you also have to know your limitations which may have been learnt in this quarter.
2. The centre square work is a mess: On both aspects clean hands within the contest and the structure of the centre square set up, those in the centre square have some work to do. Much is made of the impact of Reeves, however when you look at the Demon’s work in the contest, Gawn certainly didn’t deliver the ball on a platter to his centre square midfielders. What makes these issues more obvious is the lack of breakaway speed in the square, so we can’t pressure let alone close down their clearance work. In the 2nd quarter, both wingers took a defensive starting position as a means to try to quell the Demons clearances from the middle which was our best quarter on the scoreboard.
3. The selection of the sub: Whilst Gunston as the sub looked to be the obvious choice from those named on the bench, when Lewis or Chol was off the ground in the first half, without Gunston, we were lacking marking options forward not that our forward 50 entries were numerous in the first quarter.
4. Flicking the “Dimma” switch: Starting the game as a defender on Petracca with Pickett in the middle, Hardwick then was playing forward halfway through the first quarter and then shifted back later in the quarter. Then through the game, he was forward at times, although predominately played back, but looked to be “lost” at times. I have no issue as to which end of the ground he plays at, but I think flicking the switch through the game doesn’t do him or the team any favours.
5. If you run a tag, then the tag needs to be a “blanket”, particularly where the tagger doesn’t have good execution or decision-making skills. I’d thought if you drop the tag, then this is your sub, barring injury.
Observations
• The one-sided players by foot is a watch – Mckenzie has a habit doing 360 degree turn to get back onto his right foot which then throws the forwards out. As a top 10 pick, you’d hope he was prepared to be two sided. In the 3rd quarter, when he was caught without the space, he bombed a left foot kick which led to a scrambled inside 50, so I think he wants to hit the perfect rather than the good. CMac was similar with his last shot for goal where he attempted a right foot running banana rather than use his left foot for an across the body kick.
• D’Ambrosio was recruited for his kicking skills, however his turnovers in the first quarter didn’t reflect this. Another aspect to his game is that he has only had one inside 50 over the first two games. As the “attacking” winger, there is a need to ensure that the link work is clean.
• Lack of awareness – CMac in the 1st quarter had an entry at the top of the 50 and didn’t take the time to asses the passing traffic which allowed Petracca to pressure his kick; 2nd quarter: Frost had the possession just outside F50 and gave a look away handball to Scrimshaw who ran into pressure by Pickett, neither showed awareness; and 3rd quarter, Watson gets into a push & shove with Gawn on the wing/half forward which gave the space to Chandler to run into space from the Brown pass.
• Aside from the last 5 minutes of the 3rd quarter, Newcombe isn’t imposing himself on the game as yet.
• Weddle had a run as the around the ground ruck in the 3rd quarter in which he proved reasonably effective as it also allowed him to sneak forward for a couple of shots at goal. It was interesting that he was used rather than Nash – I wonder if this was a short trial for Blicavs next week. In the 4th quarter, he went to the wing and didn’t have a possession which may reflect how the quarter played out or may indicate he prefers the ball coming directly to him.
• Nash hit three targets inside 50 to give scoring opportunities – Watson (1st qrt); Chol (2nd qrt); & Lewis (3rd qrt which was turned over for free in the pack.) For a midfield that has struggled to hit targets, this is worth noting.
• Moore to the centre square in the last quarter may have been an option earlier in the game as he does have a burst of speed.
• Watching training, it was interesting to see how Reeves was placing himself in the corridor or at the top of the F50 which is what he did in the game with Gawn pushing down the line or to the top of the goal square. At training, the players did kick it to him, yet in the game didn’t take the opportunity aside from one time when Mckenzie became his opponent in the marking contest.
• Demons’ pre-game: watching the pre-game of the Demons’ mids and small forwards, the amount of time that they spent on ground ball gathers reflected their ability to be clean in the game. For an experienced group of players, they work on the theory of “extraordinary players do ordinary things extraordinarily well”.
Starting 4:
1st: Newcombe Worpel Nash
2nd: Newcombe Worpel Nash
3rd: Newcombe Worpel Nash
4th: Newcombe Worpel Moore
Coach killer:
Implementing a strategy that wasn’t within the capacity of the group – lesson learnt & self-inflicted. As is said of coaches, they are the “CFO” – Chief Figure (it out) Officer; so it will be interesting to see what Sam does.
Just a thought:
Scrimshaw has started the season well reflecting his pre-season work.
Great comments Mick. The main issue with the approach taken in Q1 is that it stifles our development. We need to develop an overall style of play that can hold up and going right away from that due to the strengths of the opposition is concerning as it suggests that there is a lack of belief in the style of play we're trying to develop.
Once we did away with the lateral chip kicking, we were highly competitive and while the score got away from us in the last quarter, in the middle quarters we went toe to toe with them.
1. It goes without saying that clearances, and centre clearances in particular, are a major issue and responsible for the two losses to date. It's very hard to objectively assess the back line and forward line when we are starting from behind the eight ball after a stoppage. Improving the clearances to a break-even would in all likelihood have seen us beat Essendon and seen the margin significantly reduced against Melbourne. This will obviously be a priority of focus this week and given that this was a strength last season and is a fixable problem, there's genuine cause for hope on that front.
2. We are doing something right defensively when we lose clearance so comfortable but concede 22 shots against Essendon and 23 against Melbourne. Those numbers could easily have been far larger and last year would have been. Unfortunately, both Essendon and Melbourne got good returns from their shots. That's an encouraging sign.
3. It was noticeable on the weekend how we really lacked some run from behind. Amon, Impey and Weddle rarely, if ever, broke away as receives after a mark or fee kick, which really played into Melbourne's hands. This is a real feature of Sydney's play (Blakey being the master) and interestingly, Sydney has a very good record against Melbourne. While Amon is a neat player and we like to get the ball in his hands, he's not an explosive runner. The return of Mitchell should be looked at with Amon returning to a wing where his kicking cab be sued to the benefit of our inside 50 entries. A back line of Mitchell, Weddle and Impey give sus good rebound run.
4. The Maginness experiment has to stop. We know that if this rebuild is successful, our midfield in 2-3 years won't include Maginness. Rather than playing Finn, we should be getting games into developing midfielders, such as Hustwaite.
5. Similarly with Gunston - he's been a legend for our club and given us great service and memories, but he is very slow and it was quite apparent at Brisbane last year that he'd really declined. Playing Gunston is a backward step and we'd be far better playing Ramsden and sharing the relief ruck work with Mabior and Max. Max also has great endurance.