Where's the fun gone?
Another sub-standard display at the MCG has us asking the question
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ROUND 12: HAWTHORN 8.8 (56), PIES 16.11 (107)
He may’ve said it flippantly, but when Simon Morawetz joked in our post-game Safe Space that the season ended the day the Hawks retired the post-win selfie, he might’ve been onto something.
Because somewhere along the way, the joy has disappeared.
Where’s the HOKball? The Hollywood? The chaos? The set plays? The run-and-gun off half-back? Even when we’ve won this year, it’s felt … beige. The spark that defined 2024 has faded — and in its place is a side that looks tentative, reactive, and, at times, confused.
This isn’t just a vibe thing either. The pressure and tackling numbers have dropped off sharply. The flair’s gone, sure — but so has the fight.
There’s no shame in losing to the ladder-leading Pies. They’re a seasoned, well-drilled unit where every player knows their role. Hawthorn, on the other hand, look like a team in perpetual flux. From Weddle to Sicily to Hardwick — are we seeing the effects of a team where the magnets are shifting maybe a little too much?
These performances could also be a symptom of shifting expectations. When you're no longer the plucky overachiever playing on house money and the stakes start to matter. Whatever it is, these Hawks need to bring the fun back — and fast.
🕵🏻♂️ Nat and Daz get stuck in:
NAT: We actually did a lot right for a half of this game — we played quite well for a half. Our issue at the moment is we seem to be working so hard to score when we are on top around the ball that we aren’t putting any scoreboard pressure on teams, and when they do start winning ball it gets ugly fast.
DAZ: I said this on our post-game Safe Space, but the story of the first half wasn’t Hawthorn being terrible — it was Collingwood being the best in the comp right now and moving the ball so well.
NAT: This isn’t Magpies Insiders but it would be remiss of me to not mention how good Collingwood are. Getting an incredibly even spread, their forward running patterns are elite and they are absolutely elite in how they want to move the ball. Their list make-up might make a few in club land rethink about how old is ‘too old’.
DAZ: Sometimes you just have to acknowledge when you are beaten by a better team. The second half told a different story, however.
NAT: A feature of the last two weeks when we have been playing well in general play in games is continually shooting ourselves in the foot with the ball. Moments such as Meek not putting it on the boot in the first clearance of the game and turning over the handball, Ward not kicking on his right foot and falling over, Battle’s D50 turnover and CJ’s 50 — which came about him not giving the first option to Sicily — are absolute killers and contribute to the aforementioned lack of scoreboard pressure.
DAZ: That Meek moment in the opening seconds really set the tone, didn’t it?
NAT: We scored on only 36% of our inside 50s in the first half although being ahead on disposals, contested ball and clearance. They’d kicked a score on 63% — including 10 goals from 22 entries.
DAZ: They were just ridiculously efficient inside-50. Their forward running patterns and the connection between forward and midfield midfield is hard to coach against.
NAT: We took the ball off the line and changed angles quite well in the first 45 mins of the game which allowed us to get the amount of entries that we did. It felt like being cut up by them off half back three or four times towards the end of the second quarter made us gun shy, and we were second guessing taking risks with the ball so much because of the turnover risk. This is no way to play, there’s no success in being overtly safe.
DAZ: I wonder if this is the mental shift of going from underdogs to contenders (even if that narrative is media driven)? The weight of expectation is causing indecision, and we’re missing the dare of 2024.
NAT: A lot will be made of the tackle count, and deservedly so. Although effort no doubt plays a part here — are we actually setting the ground up well enough defensively to allow us to be in a position to tackle? Further to this, given we know how lethal the pies are off half back — I was really disappointed with our forward pressure. Our smalls so many times were non events when the ball hit the ground and the pies were able to just waltz it out of our attacking 50.
DAZ: Our ground ball work was among the best in the league in 2024. We’ve gone backward in this aspect, but it’s also down to work rate. Dylan Moore had 22 pressure acts, but Macdonald and the Wiz had just 12 and a solitary tackle between them.
NAT: A few shouts on how easily the pies were able to enter — a lot down to our lack of cleanliness with the ball allowed them to set up defensively and then zero forward pressure allows their slingshot game to prosper. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in our back six last night.
DAZ: Much was made about why Mitchell didn’t start Hardwick on Elliott, but I personally don’t think any backman would’ve been able to defend against that quick ball movement and mid-forward connection.
NAT: Our confidence to wrestle back momentum in the last two weeks is miles off. Once the Pies got on top in the second half we gave very little resistance - which is a concern. Flowers to Ginnivan though — he clearly gets himself up for the Pies, was absolutely on fire early and didn’t stop trying all night.
DAZ: Death, taxes and Gini playing well against his old mob. Loves being the villain — just wish he could channel this energy for every game.
NAT: Thought Conor Nash quietly had a pretty good game after a poor return the week before. 25 touches and nine clearances is a good effort — and actually had three (three!) tackles which is more than legitimately 2/3rds of the side. The worries around the captain, and to slightly a lesser extent Dylan Moore are becoming serious alarm bells. We have two All Australian quality players that are just nowhere near it, and apart from working hard on the track I’m not overly sure what the solution is.
DAZ: I have less concerns about Moore than Sis, but I’m also not sure what sort of message it would send to the team dropping the captain? Perhaps “managed” is a less seismic solution.
NAT: We have a fight as it stands to make the eight, and I think the last three weeks shows where we are — a 7-10 team. We are 1-4 against top eight sides.
DAZ: I’m not even thinking about ladder position. I want this team to get its 2024 majo back.
📦 Bonus: Box Hill Watch
NAT: It’s a big watch on Box Hill this weekend, particularly on Serong, Butler and obviously Dear. There’s not a lot there who are needle movers at present but these might be three that could. I always tend to err towards giving good players with credits in the bank a chance, but to reward VFL form at a some point if the output at AFL level isn’t enough.
DAZ: I was down at Fenjiu Stadium/Box Hill City Oval, hoping for a palette cleanser. And while a 17-point loss was disappointing, the trio you mentioned plus a few others will give us options if we choose to swing the axe:
Seamus Mitchell’s 35 possessions and a goal off half back warrants some serious consideration. Thought his ball use and run was terrific all day.
The Serong experiment on the wing seems to be working (18 disposals, two goals). He’s an interesting size for that position and a clean user of the footy who hasn’t really put a foot wrong. If we’re looking to drop someone like Morrison or Mass based on form, he’s certainly an option.
Sammy Butler wasn’t as impactful as he’s been in previous weeks, but he’s building nicely and will get his chance when the time is right. Didn’t do a whole lot wrong, but feels like Sammy has enough trust in a midfield contingent of Ward, Jai, Nash and Worps, so Butler will have to bide his time and continue to hone his craft in the middle of the ground.
Mackenzie had a good final quarter, but sadly isn’t the same Frenchie that started the year like a house on fire. His hand issue has clearly set him back.
Calsh worked hard up the ground and took a terrific pack mark. I still think he’s the kind of player that performs better at AFL level, and we all know how much he loves playing the Dogs.
🧐 Things we like to see #1: Ginni in form
Loves playing against the Pies and continues to put a solid patch of form together since his relegation to the twos a few weeks back. Ginni was magnificent early and provided the spark - with a few (muted but still there) goal celebrations in tow. This chain of play keeping us in touch in the opening term was a clear highlight.
🧐 Things we like to see #2: Prime Time
It’s been great being back on the big stage in Prime Time being rewarded for our achievements last season as one of the most exciting teams in the competition. But… with the Dogs on Thursday night this week and 4 x Thursday / Friday night games in the run home, our social media admins will be hoping they can continue to push the fact, and be backed up with matching performances on field. Could have a big impact on the 2026 fixture.
🧐 Things we like to see #3: 2014 Gunners
Well, maybe not quite 2014, but after a quiet start Jack Gunston did his best to try and turn things around in the second term. It was highlighted by this fantastic contested mark in the goal square as a Jai Newcombe set shot fell short — Gunners taking the grab and kicking the goal to bring us back within a kick of the Pies.
⭐️ Best on ground: Jack Ginnivan
While there were not too many to choose from for our best players on the night, Ginnivan tried his hardest to drag us over the line against his old team. Finished the game with three goals, 31 disposals, six score involvements and four marks - he plays well against the Pies and worked hard to cover ground across the MCG on Friday night.
💫 Rising star: Josh Ward
Another timely reminder that Ward is only 21 years of age, and despite all the naysayers is putting in a decent body of work in 2025. Registered 26 touches, three tackles, four clearances — with three rebound and three inside 50s to be one of the few players that could say they performed on the night. Had three clangers — and if he can fix them and the significance of them each week, he’ll be lauded even more. One of the few players to have categorically improved this year.
👼 Unsung hero: Conor Nash
After the past few weeks, Nash was part of a midfield unit that on the night was NOT comprehensively beaten. Sam Mitchell discussed him in his presser — that after a four week holiday and some rust showing last week, it was a good return from our Irishman. When you consider that we actually won the clearance count and that Nash had nine of them, it was a decent return, and his 25 touches, and four score involvements added to a decent outing in the middle.
🤯 Under pressure: Jack Scrimshaw
Finished the day subbed out with only eight touches (five of them were handballs) and three marks, Scrimma is yet to fire this season. And with our backline still yet to look settled with the additions of Josh Battle, Tom Barrass and the horrible form of James Sicily, Scrimma is another who would be feeling some heat with his own individual performances.
🎤 Sammy said what!?
“It was pretty clear to everyone that was here and those watching at home that we’re miles off it.”
“That Collingwood team are super sharp, and we played Brisbane last week and they were very good as well, but that was another level today.”
“That’s what we need to aspire to and above — to beat them when it matters, and we’ve got plenty of work to do.”
“We just got beaten by 10 goals, so that’s where they are at.”
“You are always assessing where you’re at, and what we have known is that we are not the best in it and that’s what we want to be.”
“We know that when players work hard, you work hard as an organisation to improve, and that’s given us a benchmark of what we’re aiming to get towards, so we knew we are not at the top and we’ve got some work to get there.”
“That’s a pretty big reality check for what the best look like at this stage of the season, and it’s a long season.”
“We’re going to need to play better - we are not going to beat too many teams playing the way we did tonight.”
🗣️ Final word: The MRO
Despite the commentary team baying for blood, Big Lloyd avoided a lengthy suspension for his late hit on Pat Lipinski. While Lipinski was subbed out with concussion, the MRO came to the conclusion it was an accidental football act.
“Lipinski was the target of a kick inside forward 50 with Meek approaching from behind to contest the mark. With his eyes on the ball, Meek attempts to spoil with a straight arm that does not deviate from the line of the ball, and in doing so makes primarily body contact with Lipinski in the marking contest.
“It was the view of the MRO that Meek made a genuine attempt to spoil the ball, that his actions were not unreasonable in the circumstances and that he took reasonable care to avoid making forceful high contact to Lipinski in the marking contest. Furthermore, it could not have been reasonably foreseen that Lipinski’s head would make forceful contact with the ground as a result of Meek’s conduct. No further action was taken.”
⏭️ Next week:
A critical clash against the Dogs awaits us at Marvel Stadium on Thursday night as we look to break the run of three losses in succession.
It’s another game against an opponent in the top half of the ladder and an opportunity to show the footy world that we are not just here to make up the numbers in 2025.
A win takes us to 8-5 whereas a loss will have the ledger sitting at 7-6 with Adelaide to play the week following.
Prime Time. Prime Opportunity.
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What was learnt:
1. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater - The second opinion we sought from the auditors confirmed that we aren’t Top 2 material. As has been acknowledged this run of game was going to sort out where we sit in the pecking order and the evidence is that Top 4 spot may not be possible now with the next two weeks being critical to achieving this goal. As is said, it is better to get an early diagnosis of any problems, so you have time to address them. There is no benefit to roll through the season thinking all is well when there are genuine underlying issues being papered over. This doesn’t mean that we can’t be playing in September, however there is also a need to balance how we address these issues without blowing up what does work for us.
2. Playing slingshot footy didn’t work for us but was what the Pies wanted – From the second quarter, it became clear that we couldn’t play a slingshot contest as the Pies prey on chaos. If this is the game style, then you have to better at it than them. They have a similar set up to ours with two high half forwards and four who stay at home, then have plenty of space to work in. The other aspect to their forwards is that they are all mobile. With the way their mids delivered the ball to them, I would argue it there would be few defenders in the game who could cut off these entries. The other aspect for them is that they have good looks at the goals and players who know what their abilities are when kicking for goal.
3. Speed kills either by ball movement or foot speed – When an opponent’s game plan revolves around speed of ball movement, the capacity to mark your opponent by either applying - a) defensive pressure around the contest (well documented) or b) not allow overlap run to create the outside option is important. When you look at the team, aside from Watson, Jiath and Weddle, we don’t have great burst runners/chasers but have strong gut runners. It is best exemplified by the opposition half back flankers running past to create the overlap option that then forces the defenders up the field to decide to come forward, leaving their man or allowing the runner to take grass for a deeper entry.
4. You can’t buy (a lot of) experience – With 9 players still under 80 games of experience and only 2 with over 200 games, when you compared this to the Pies, the ability to control the game couldn’t be starker. When you look at the five players they brought in, they had 1153 games, whereas our 23 had a total of 2596 games (56% more than those five).
5. First quarter clean hands in the middle & afterwards tackle pressure came in – The mids worked well in the first quarter and looked to be as cohesive as they had for several weeks. However, after quarter time, the Pies mids looked to disrupt our mids and we did not adjust to the pressure by fumbling when we did have a chance to break clear from the contest.
6. Returned to defensive structure after half-time – For the first time since early last season, after half time initially Hardwick went back with Sicily and Weddle going forward, but this lasted about 5 minutes with Hardwick and Weddle swapping back. Then aside from when we won the clearance and entered our F50, Hardwick then dropped behind the ball, leaving a Pies’ spare in defence. This then made it harder for Gunston and Chol to provide a marking option. This tactic to protect the defence was a concern looking at it in game.
7. With the “brat pack” not hitting the scoreboard, where do goals come from – As we mentioned on Wednesday’s pod, last year between Watson (18), Ginnivan (13), Moore (11) and Macdonald (8), we’d get 6-8 goal per week which then means we’d have to find another 6-7 goals to be competitive. This year, whilst the numbers may look good, it’s worth remembering that this time last year, Watson was coming back from injury and not kicking straight. Gunston (25) and Chol (20) are doing their part with Hardwick kicking 11. It appears that there is an imbalance as to when the smalls are scoring and probably tend to kick three and then one in the next game.
Observations:
• Again, where we were taking shots from demonstrated our inability to dominate the corridor which would allow better shots to be taken. Similarly, taking shots from distance is another concern – this week Newcombe was one who needs to assess his ability from distance, particularly set shot. Hardwick should’ve kicked his first one around the corner, but
• Meek did make a difference in the middle and did impose himself on the contest against one of the in-form rucks whose style is one he has struggled with previously.
• With the slingshot nature of the game early, this meant that Amon couldn’t get into the game, particularly with how efficient the Pies were going I50 and scoring. This impacted on our ball distribution and flow.
• Chol’s centre bounce work again was a strength to the flow of our game.
• Ward whilst making a couple of skill errors showed that he was able to hold his own in the midfield. He was particularly strong in the last couple of minutes on the second quarter when we were under the pump in our defence
• Scrimshaw had a game more reminiscent of his 2022-23 years.
• First game of the year where we didn’t “win” a quarter. Previously, we had at least squared this stat in every game.
• TOG % - Bottom 5 (leaving out subs): Nash 71%, C. Macdonald 72%, Worpel 74% Ward 76% Hardwick 77% Barrass & D’Ambrosio 78%. (Sicily & Weddle highest at 89%.) It looks as though with game lost, there may have been some workload management across the team with two six day breaks.
• Kicking efficiency (DE): Sicily 100% (100), Barrass 100% (89), D’Ambrosio 93% (89), Impey 92% (88), Amon 88% (86) Jiath 86% (68) Scrimshaw 80% (83) Hardwick 80% (75).
Worpel 43% (62), Nash 42% (68), C. Macdonald 29% (68), Meek 25% (60), Morrison 17% (58)
Coach Killer
Whilst the kick to him from Ward on the MCC members 50m line in the second quarter wasn’t perfect, the fact that Jiath tried to take on the tackler rather than handball to Sicily who was giving support wasn’t bad enough, to just put the ball on the ground for a 50m penalty was just irresponsible. Even when he picked up the ball, he knew what he what he had done.
Starting 4: (CBA/CC)
1st Qrt: Newcombe (22/1) Worpel (18/1) Nash (19/3)
2nd Qrt: Newcombe Nash Ward (20/1)
3rd Qrt: Newcombe Worpel Ward
4th Qrt: Newcombe Worpel Nash
Meek 22/4 Chol 6/1 Moore 4/0 Morrison 1/0
It is interesting that Ward attended second most CBAs behind Newcombe, as to whether this is a sign of development or merely a matter of the timing of rotations and goals scored rapidly. Meek having the most centre clearances will probably mean that they will lack finesse, but will at least provide a territory gain, allowing the defenders to set up a wall.
Issue for the week:
Will it be panic or a measured response at the selection table? It has already been identified that a serious concern is the lack of midfield speed which allows players to not only spread from the contest to provide options, but also better able to chase down the opposition which would impact on the pressure acts and tackle numbers. The problem being the list as it stands doesn’t provide an immediate option hence the interest in Butler’s performance as a mid at Box Hill.
Agree with the disappearance of the 'fun' and with it the disappearance of the 360 with the performance. It has been like Samson losing his hair. Players surly don't forget how to play. Last year when the team was flying, our back 6 basically had Hardwick, Frost, Impy, Weddle, Sicily, Scrimshaw, and on the wings D'Ambrosdio and Amon . They were so in sync with each other that they could have waltzed out of the backline blindfolded and still hit their targets. Now we have added Barrass, Battle and CJ and the only thing missing is the Benny Hill music.
We are top heavy and slow in the back half and are being smashed. Who's going forward , who's staying back, no wonder players are confused about their roles. The height of Hokball we saw hawk players streaming forward and having more targets than on a dart board. Now, somewhere between the forward 50 and the back fifty there is a monumental stuff up that results in a goal to the opposition or a hurried kick under pressure to a crowded forward line. I must admit that it was hard watching the aged Collingwood looking like the speed machine as they pounced on the hawk errors.
It has to stop! Is Sicily carrying an injury yes or no? Movie Battle to CHF now! Calsher Deer back into the forward pocket. Back six-Hardwick, Barrass, Impy, Weddle, Sicily, Scrimshaw, Karl Amon and D'Ambrrosio back on the wings and let's all get together and have fun again and I want to see winning selfies again at the end of games.
Yes, now!!!