Finals Fix: The seventh seed is the best team in it
It’s a minute into the third quarter at the MCG.
A wobbling kick inside 50 from Sam Frost is well judged and marked by Bailey Dale, the Western Bulldogs’ best and most damaging kick.
Assessing his options while being knocked slightly off balance by Jack Ginnvin in the marking contest, Dale stumbles a few metres to his side, coming off his mark; then, when he rightens, spots a target down the wing.
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The ball seems to move from hand to foot in slow motion as he prepares; because every one of the 97,000 filling the MCG to its buttresses can see what is about to happen next.
Nick Watson, the goalsneak who was a meme for the first few months of the year for making certain goals disappear, the electric junior whom the Bulldogs moved heaven and earth last year to move up the draft order to try and nab, has found himself in the perfect place to have 70,000 screaming Hawks fans out of their seats.
Blissfully unaware of what is about to unfold, Dale sedately prepares to kick… and is mown down from behind by a textbook Watson tackle, pinning the arm controlling the ball and spilling the footy free. Holding the ball.
Watson did not kick a goal from his free kick, though he’d send four others over the goal umpire’s hat in a first final he will never forget.
But of all the many moments to savour for Hawks fans who, let’s face it, can hardly be called long-suffering in their ninth year of waiting for another finals to win, it was this one that perfectly encapsulates the essence of a team that has risen from nowhere to become the most watchable, spectacular, irresistible team in footy.
And with due respect to what Geelong did at the Adelaide Oval on Thursday night, I’m prepared to make the call: right now, the Hawks are the best in it.
For starters, they’ll be hefty favourites, without a shadow of a doubt, when they head to the city of churches next Friday night to face the Power. How could they not be, after a performance in their first prime time appearance in 18 months of that calibre.
To indulge a little – and hey, I just watched on grimly as my team got utterly swamped by a brown and gold tidal wave for three quarters after lining up for a seat since 1:45, I’ve earned that – I would say I’ve watched more of Hawthorn since I labelled them the best bad team you’ll see in April 2023 after a lionhearted but fruitless afternoon against the Bulldogs, than anyone that doesn’t actually barrack for them.
A few months later, after they tore a premiership-bound Collingwood to smithereens on the hallowed turf, my summation of Sam Mitchell’s team was that they were ‘an inconsistent but dangerous lot who, on their day, are utterly terrifying’.
I tipped them in the eight to start the year, watched on defeatedly as they slumped to 0-5 and then 1-6 to look every bit the bottom-four side that most earmarked them as.
I’ve written about them this year as they became the most watchable team in the AFL; when they officially earmarked themselves as a finals certainty by pulverising the Magpies; and now, I’ve witnessed their spectacular arrival onto the September stage that suits them as if they were born to it.
What’s remarkable is that, since the nadir of the first three months of 2023, the Hawks’ greatest strengths remain decidedly similar.
James Sicily is still a colossus behind the ball, plucking intercept marks at will and spoiling or disrupting whenever that isn’t an option: he clutched four intercept marks in the elimination final, and when the game was on an even keel up to half time he was a clear best afield with daylight second.
It’s just impossible to believe that the man is a shade over six feet tall, because no matter who he’s opposed to aerially, he’ll find a way to mark it.
It helps him now that a more experienced, confident back six does far more in the way of blocking and jostling bigger opponents to allow him a clear run at the ball – Sam Frost in particular, who nudged Sam Darcy under the ball so many times on Friday night that I think the Dogs giant ended the game with a crick in his neck from bending it back so often, did this with aplomb.
Jai Newcombe and James Worpel still burst through tackles with devastating ferocity, or use subtler strength to free arms from the clutches of one or even two opponents to win clear a handball to a teammate left free in the same motion.
Newcombe is no stranger to massacring the Bulldogs, having gathered 41 disposals – and dealt Adam Treloar a don’t argue so brutal that I’m convinced an imprint of his hand still remains embedded in his chest – in their win in Launceston late last year.
This was less a one-man band than that day, but 35 disposals, six inside 50s – a mark beaten only by Worpel – and a pearler of a goal from a forward 50 stoppage that gave the Hawks a second-quarter lead they never relinquished – make him hard to top for player of the match honours.
There is still a tremendous amount of trust in the ball-winners at stoppages, whether it’s the established Newcombe and Worpel or a youngster like Josh Ward only in this team by the grace of the injury gods (and now all but impossible to keep out if and when Will Day and Cam Mackenzie are ready to return).
In 2023, the Hawks were the best team at winning centre bounces for much of the season: in the premiership quarter, when they stranglehold on the game reached Thanos on Loki proportions, they had eight more clearances than a Dogs team with that at the core of its gameplan since 2016 at least.
And a good chunk of it is down to trust: Lloyd Meek wins the tap down to one of the on-ballers, regularly Ward on Friday night. Opposition midfielders are drawn to the man with the footy, and one or two more are even able to wrap him up; meantime, his Hawks teammates fan out in all directions.
They have faith that man will have the strength and the sound mind to get hands free from the would-be tacklers and release and handpass to a free brown and gold jumper; from there, there’s an overlap.
Meek is the addition that has changed the game entirely: since coming in for Ned Reeves at the start of the year, he has not only proved a hulking tower of strength over the footy, both in ruck contests and following up with tackles and clearances; but his around the ground work is extraordinary for someone of his build.
46 hitouts to 23 against Tim English isn’t a surprise; 23 disposals and eight marks to 15 and two damn well is. Backing himself to be involved in transition plays where most ruckmen would head for the hills the second the ball movement becomes quick, taking huge pack marks and drilling goals in attack, and of course helping out defensively, the big cult hero embarrassed the reigning All-Australian big man – and it’s not the first ruckman he has comprehensively bossed this season.
This is how the Hawks dominated the territory battle; but with just three of their goals from stoppages against the Bulldogs – though with plenty more behinds – it’s not what won them the game.
What did that is the addition to what Mitchell is doing with his team in 2024; the tricks affectionately dubbed ‘Hokball’ but which almost do their manner of play a disservice by making a meme out of what should be utterly terrifying for the seven teams remaining in the finals hunt.
Six of the Hawks’ goals came from chains starting in defensive 50, while 11 of them came from turnovers; freakish stats against a Bulldogs team who, up until Friday night, seemed to have worked out how to defend in transition.
Unlike most attacking teams, it’s not the corridor where the Hawks are at their best: it’s on the far wing. Unless there’s an obvious chance to overlap run via a teammate running past – and it’s extraordinary how bold Hawthorn’s defenders are to continually back themselves to run past the mark-taker, receive the ball, take advantage of the stand rule freezing the man on the mark, and continue to hit up targets further afield – the next move is always to go laterally.
It’s why the Hawks racked up 60 more uncontested possessions than the Dogs, and a gargantuan 117 marks: 12 were taken by Blake Hardwick, often the last man back and the first link in the switch chain; while close behind him with 11 was Sicily, who remains the number one backman the Hawks want the ball in the hands of.
With nine, Massimo D’Ambrosio, the best opposite wingman in the game right now, the king of bolting into space faster than any opponent, being used virtually every time, and then using the footy, by and large, immaculately. Of his 32 disposals, seven led to scores.
Then, further afield, there’s the roaming half-forwards of Dylan Moore and Jack Ginnivan; one an All-Australian debutant this season, the other putting paid to the notion that he was a one-trick goalsneak without the tank to push up the field like he has from day one for the Hawks.
Neither had their most dominant days, with 17 and 15 disposals respectively; but the other of those rangy, swift speedsters across the half-forward line, Connor Macdonald, sure did, finishing with 23 disposals and two of the night’s more cherished goals.
The greatest standout of all, though, was the kicking. Hawthorn’s machine of the early 2010s was the greatest kicking side the game has seen; these Hawks don’t quite match those lofty heights just yet, but so immaculate is their work by foot AND so high-risk and high-reward the options they take that it feels like they are.
Across the second and third quarters, the Hawks went at 72 per cent by foot – and I’d bet a fair chunk of the errors were them spurning shots at goal in the third term that meant the scoreboard didn’t quite reflect their utter dominance for a while – while the Dogs, pressured into oblivion by the Hawthorn smalls and crunched by their ultra-powerful midfielders at every stoppage, could only muster 61 per cent.
It was impossible not to admire the laserlike accuracy of Sicily or Jarman Impey across half-back; the shrewd intelligence of every Ginnivan possession; the kick off the outside of the boot from Newcombe to find Watson in the third quarter that at first I assumed was a shank, but after watching the replay makes me think it might be the most brilliant kick of the season.
Or Josh Weddle, the speedy half-back and part-time ruckman, somehow, who wears the most famous of Hawthorn numbers and does it justice every time he runs out. He went at 92.9 per cent from his 14 disposals, and I honestly couldn’t tell you which one didn’t find a man.
The difference between what unfolded at the MCG on Friday night and the hard-working but rabble-adjacent team that butchered targets within an inch of their lives against the Dogs in April 2023 was simply extraordinary; the work that has gone in to recruiting D’Ambrosios and Ginnivans to help out matched in effectiveness by the sheer improvement from the rest of the team across all lines.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a side improve their skills so much in so little time.
And I haven’t even mentioned the forward line yet. Granted, such was the overwhelming supply on Friday night that it would have been difficult to not rack up a score, but still, it’s just about impossible to shut them down even if you restrict the supply.
At ground level, there’s menace everywhere: with Ginnivan, Watson, Macdonald and Moore lurking around, little wonder 36 of the Dogs’ defensive 50 disposal chains were intercepted by the Hawks and led half of their 14 goals. The likes of Dale, Taylor Duryea, Joel Freijah and Lachie Bramble, great or at least reasonable kicks at all, weren’t given the space no move, and nor were their intended targets further afield – as Dale found out to his memorable detriment.
Nick Watson celebrates a goal. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
If the ball makes it to ground level – and on Friday night, that came virtually whenever the Hawks avoided kicking to Rory Lobb – there was just no escape. I struggle to believe how the Hawks only ended up laying nine tackles inside 50 – maybe it’s because every tackle brought with it two or three Hawks inflicting it at the same time.
Put that all together – elite kicking, repeat entries through suffocating pressure, and a territory dominance by virtue of midfield strength and trust – and you get 16 marks inside 50 from a team whose three spearheads are a first-year father-son that no one else wanted, a triple-premiership star most thought was over the hill, and the big-name recruit who played a game so bizarre he got Bronx cheered midway through the third quarter.
I don’t think anyone could possibly have foreseen Calsher Dear coming. He broke into the side only because Mitch Lewis’ injuries meant there was virtually no one else to pick as a key forward at the start of the year; he’s remained in because he’s been so good Mitchell is content with a three-tall forward line.
He’s slight and gangly, still, but there’s a presence about him that, to be brutally frank, the far, far more highly touted Jamarra Ugle-Hagan doesn’t have. He looks like a stiff breeze might buffet him over, but he has the knack of making the drop zone his space and being very difficult to budge.
Plus, of course, he reads the ball sensationally in the air: his spectacular one-handed mark flying in on the boundary line early in the third, to turn a looming Bulldogs on the full free kick into a 50m shot at goal he nailed just for good measure, was the moment it became inescapably clear the Hawks were going to rip this game apart.
Realistically, since bursting into life mid-season, the Hawks have been a top-four, even top-two-worthy team; if not for their final 30 seconds choke against the Power back in May, they’d have finished second, and that’s pretty much where they sit in the pecking order.
Their one Achilles heel, and it reared ever so slightly again amid the carnage of their elimination final spectacular, is their tendency to take the foot off the pedal at the start of last quarters where the game is in their control, but the margin not quite unassailable.
It’s cost them games against Power and GWS outfits throwing caution to the wind against them; and it’s worth noting the Hawks’ ball use is far sloppier when trying to maintain possession than when trying to attack, as evidenced by the previously rare as hen’s teeth shanks and miscues suddenly popping up in the first fifteen minutes of the final term.
The Bulldogs were wasteful during a period in which they had control for the first time since the opening quarter, meaning the margin never drew closer than four goals and allowed the Hawks precious time to steady and reassert themselves to end up winning the term.
But if you’re heading into a semi final in which your greatest enemy is yourselves, you’re doing plenty right. And on the balance both of what we saw on Friday night and what we’ve learned across the last two months of the home-and-away season, it’s that the Hawks deserve to go into any final they qualify for from here as an even money chance at best.
The seventh seeds are the best team in it. And the Hawthorn journey, you sense, is only just beginning.