Not good enough ... yet
This was one of those games that we will be winning in future years
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ROUND 17: GWS 12.13 (85), HAWTHORN 10.12 (72)
📝 Main recap:
No need to use the term honourable loss.
No need to talk about our young inexperienced playing group.
No need to draw attention to the fact that our captain — and the best defender in the competition — wasn’t on the field to help out.
We lost this game and we didn’t deserve to win it.
We had opportunities to leave Western Sydney with a win — especially in the final term, but we just couldn’t convert and lacked polish throughout this encounter with the Giants. If we did, we’d be arguing that having taken our chances, we deserved the win. But we didn’t — and we didn’t.
There were some major positives having comfortably won the clearances, contested possession, and seeing the likes of Will Day, Conor Macdonald, Josh Ward, Jai Newcombe, Josh Weddle and Finn Maginness excel.
And while we didn’t win the four points, we take solace at knowing that in 2-3 years time on the chart of our development, this is a game we comfortably win.
✂️ Snippet of the match (I): Josh Ward
The beneficiary of a wayward GWS defensive bomb that ended out of bound on the full, Josh Ward stepped up to take a shot next to the fence on the boundary line. From 45 metres out he calmly went back and kicked truly on his trusty left foot to bring us back within two point in the third quarter. Quality skills, quality goal, quality player.
✂️ Snippet of the match (II): Connor Macdonald
Speaking of goals to keep us in the game, our silky half forward ‘Con’ kicked a ripper in the final term to keep us in the hunt. Straight from the centre bounce after a Fergus Greene goal, the ball came out to Macdonald via a Jai Newcombe handball, and he ran onto it, sprinted inside 50 and nailed it. Every kick to that end was being pushed left to right with a stiff wind — so pure was Macdonald’s kick that the ball didn’t once deviate off its line as it split the middle. Class.
🍒 You never forget your first: DGB
Kneel defender DGB, arise DGB the forward. While he didn’t have the significant overall game he would have been hoping for, DGB did manage to bag his first goal for the club on the half time siren. Having won a free kick for being held 20 metres from goal, our newly crowned forward went back and duly converted his set shot. And didn’t the boys get around him to celebrate. You just love to see it.
🍔 Ash’s key takeaways:
A frustrating afternoon for the Hawks at their ‘house of horrors’ in the west of Sydney. They’re now 0-8 at Giants Stadium and despite the closeness of the scores, there was never any real confidence felt before or during the game that the Hawks would win.
It was great to see the spirit and the competitiveness return, but it was a generally sloppy performance. The skills didn’t match the endeavour.
Will Day was likely Hawthorn’s best player. But if the Hawks were going to spring the upset, then he just had to nail those two shots in the final term. The missed snap around the body was unforgivable. The set shot moments later only marginally less so.
17-6 edge in centre clearances should translate to four premiership points. But the forward entries were largely poor and Mitch Lewis played a rare shocker. Sam Taylor played a fantastic game for the Giants.
When James Sicily was rubbed out for three weeks, the sinking feeling was that his absence would cost the Hawks a game they might otherwise win. Reckon Saturday was it. The backline easily played its best of the four he has missed and James Blanck won some key contests against Jesse Hogan. But Sicily would have made a difference; there was anxiety and a sense of foreboding every time the Giants moved the ball quickly.
One former East Brighton Vampire totally schooled another on Saturday. Finn Maginness took Josh Kelly to the cleaners but perhaps there wasn’t enough respect paid to Maginness by the Giants. It was pretty clear all week that Maginness would stay in the side and likely run with Kelly, but neither he nor the Giants coaching staff seemed to pay him much respect.
It was arguably Maginness’s best game for the club, better than his job on Melbourne’s Ed Langdon last season. But it did little to clarify where he fits long term on Hawthorn’s list. There won’t always be an obvious run with role for Maginness and there is now ample evidence that he offers little from a purely offensive perspective. So where do he and the club go from here?
Will 20 touches in a narrow defeat be enough for Seamus Mitchell to finally earn the Rising Star nomination? Let’s hope so. It is time.
Saturday might have been the greatest learning experience yet for Denver Grainger-Barras. He provided something a bit different as a forward and his first career goal was terrific. But he was gassed in the second half and perhaps that was the point all along. Maybe, just maybe, that was Sam Mitchell’s way of educating DGB as to what training standards are required and what might be possible if he meets them.
Save for one last game in Tassie, the Hawks are done traveling for the year. They were winless interstate — Tassie excluded. They also have yet to play two consecutive games in Victoria this year so the vast majority of supporters are looking forward to making regular trips to the footy for the rest of the season and watching the rebuild take place (and making rash judgements) through their eyes rather than the lens of Fox Footy.
That starts with North next Sunday at Marvel. The Kangas will see this as their Grand Final and their team selection for Geelong this week suggests as much. They might have rested a few. Can the Hawks carry the weight of expectation? With Sicily and perhaps Luke Breust back, they should win.
⭐️ Superstar - Will Day
A cut above all of the other Hawks that took to GIANTS Stadium on Saturday afternoon, Day showed just why we continue to tout him as a generational talent. Ducked, weaved, split packs and just seemed to have more time than anyone else to break free and deliver the ball to a teammate. Had 26 touches at 88% disposal efficiency, seven score involvements and four marks. The knock on him being the two shots at goal that he missed in the final term — the second opportunity one you’d back him to kick 99 times out of 100. But as Sam Mitchell said at his presser — he got himself into those positions and stood up despite the finishes. Happy to overlook them based on the balance of his game — we would also like him to spend LONGER in the midfield through each game.
💫 Rising star - Connor Macdonald
Sloppy use of the ball early, but Con was one of the sparks that kept reigniting our chances in the second half. Looked silky and polished across half forward, finishing the game with 23 touches, six score involvements, seven inside-50s and that wonderful running goal in the final term. Seems to be enjoying his footy being given the opportunity to play full matches and is definitely a player that is continuing to rise.
🤷♂️ Falling star - Jarman Impey
A little bit unfair on Jars who is having a stellar season, but we just didn’t seem to have our usual poise coming out of the backline against the Giants, and Impey’s worst game of the season is probably the reason. Granted he was ill throughout the week and possibly shouldn’t have played — but he was selected and took the field where he had seven touches, no marks and three tackles before being subbed out at three quarter time for Harry Morrison. Looking for a big bounce back against the Roos.
👼 Unsung Hero - Finn Maginness
Josh Kelly is a star and has played 180 matches in his career without being subbed (he has been taken off or been brought on in a further nine games). In those 180 matches, this was the lowest number of touches he has ever had in a game. What a wonderful shutdown role Maginness played on the Giant mid, keeping him to six touches, zero marks, four tackles and forcing three clangers from Kelly.
There is a role for Finn when the balance of the team suits - this was a timely reminder not to forget about just how important a quality tagger can be. He finished with 15 possessions, five tackles and three score involvements of his own.
🪜 Ladder check in
Rooted to 16th spot at the moment and unlikely to be moving anywhere anytime soon. The Roos still have Geelong in Round 17 before we take them on next week to cement yet another season of finishing above them. It’s the small wins.
🎤 Sammy press conference bingo
“We just weren’t quite good enough.” ✅
“It was a game that came down to key moments.” ✅
“We fly home proud of our effort.” ✅
“We lacked a bit of potency.” ✅
“We will continue to grow.”
🗣️ What they said - Conor Nash
“It was a much better performance - we still messed up a lot of things but I thought it was a positive performance.”
“Denver up forward, Karl to half-back, Finn shutting down Kelly … it was much better.”
“The lads’ mentality as a young side to keep pushing through the adversity - not everything went right tonight but the lads were able to just get back on the horse, go again and next contest which is big learnings for a young group.”
“We were able to bounce back and keep bouncing back - particularly in that last quarter. It’s bitterly disappointing and it hurts, it really does albeit we played alright, but we move on to North next week - a massive challenge.”
🗣️ What they said - Jai Newcombe
“It’s disappointing to be so close and not get over the line, but I think if we compare our efforts to the last two weeks and being in the contest and in the game for all four quarters is pleasing - disappointing not to finish it off though."
“You take the good with the bad I suppose - there are times where they could have hurt us and they didn’t so it flows both ways but we got the chance to put them away or put ourselves in a better winning position than we were, and we weren’t able to quite capitalise.”
“We learn from that and hopefully when we get in that situation next time we will be able to capitalise.”
What was learnt:
1. Clean hands (& a broken record) - In the centre square, with clean hands and forward movement of the ball, we were able to score with 5 goals from centre clearances. For a team that has scoring issues in its forward half, it is a feature to look at for the rest of the season.
(Note: starting square Nash, Worpel & Day - same as Lions game with Newcombe on the bench.)
2. Taking advantage from frees - on more than one occasion, we took the advantage from frees in the centre square, which wasn't the optimal decision. In one of them, Nashy ended up with another free, others resulted in ugly entries. Sometimes when you are hot, you need to take your time.
3. Role of Wingard - there has been much consternation amongst the faithful on the value of Wingard to the team. For the second game in a row, he set up the first goal as well as 2 goals; 7 score involvements & 10th for metres gained by the Hawks' players. Is the issue that with Breust out, he had room to move?
4. Fergus Greene can play the "tall" forward role as he showed the preparedness to crash some packs and whilst not taking the marks, he made it a 50/50 contest on a number of occasions. This is something that I don't think he has done previously. DGB was also prepared to do this as well.
5. Dropped marks in the back half with inferred pressure - again, defenders dropping marks in the back half put undue pressure on their teammates. Mitchell in 1st quarter (out near boundary line on F50 entry) which lead to Hogan goal. Scrimshaw at CHB in the 2nd quarter.
6. Nash is now recognised a "Ferrari" - given that Frost was given the chop out ruck role (i.e. tractor), we now know that the coaches have upgraded the status of Nash.
Observations:
* Josh Weddle bounces the ball with either hand when on the run.
* Dumb footballers still hurt us - Greene 50m penalty; Blancke missing the target over 15-20 metres; Impey handballing to Worpel off balance.
* CMac learns quickly - in the 2nd quarter, he had a running chance to kick for goal running inside 50 and looked for other options & ended up missing the shot. Come the last quarter, he had the same opportunity and didn't look sideways.
* Newcombe only had 2 kicks after half time - with one of these kicks being to Moore being covered by Himmelberg. (Hard to tell if he had a tag given his first half 7K/11HB and ended up with 9/19).
* Goal kicking from 30-40m out - at least 2-3 times a session, after doing a drill, all of the players take 3-4 shots from this distance out and don't miss that often. When they have a "contest" on the shot e.g. miss and push ups are the penalty, their success rate is very high. It is interesting to continue to think about what game day pressure does.
Post-game social media discussion point:
The game of Reeves - the chat has again focused on his lack of marking in the game, however there appears to be little acknowledgement of his actual ruck work. He won the hitouts to advantage 12-5 and with 5 goals from centre square clearances, it was the only scoring method that kept us in the game. If you review Worpel's shot in the last quarter where he ran inside 50 and kicked a point, it came from a boundary throw in where Reeves tapped it over his head to CMac with handballs setting up Worpel.
Whilst the discussion has merit, but it has to be rounded in recognising the all aspects of the performance. Curiously, one paper listed him in our best players which I don't support, although in Sydney games, you can get interesting reports from NSW based journos.
IMHO - The question, at the moment, becomes a choice between scoring 5 goals from centre square clearances vs. 5 marks around the ground, I'll take the 5 goals given our scoring issues. This would mean to be competitive , we would then have to score 8-10 goals from general play.
A couple of other interesting aspects to this discussion:
a) Kosi started in the centre square at the start of at least one quarter in the BH game rather than Meek.
b) It is worth recalling that the last piece of the puzzle for Aaron Sandilands was his marking around the ground as well as recalling Hodgey's speech on Mitchell's elevation to the Hall of Fame, he made the point of his role in nullifying Sandiland's ruck work & hitting zones in the 2013 GF. This may indicate the importance that Mitchell places on this aspect of the game.
Thanks for your great summation of this weeks game. Just a little surprised that you didn't mention the outstanding contribution of James Worpel to our centre clearance dominance. He has been a vastly improved player this year. I think he is building close to the Peter Crimmins medal form of a few years ago. Yes, has a few things to work on (same as a lot of his team mates) but I thought he was excellent for us.