Qualifying Final – Hawthorn v Collingwood

Friday 7 September 2012, MCG

Riding the bumps (and slaps and punches) with a grin

The moment

Hawthorn: we had our pav beating Collingwood, and ate it too watching Freo win.
photo: womanssday ninemsm

What a triumph! A tour-de-force! You couldn’t help but be excited when the ball sailed through the big sticks to seal the game. Tell me you didn’t leap from your seat and fist pump the air while emitting a primal guttural war cry. Tell me you didn’t have a private thought of the “It’s ours!” variety before reaching for your phone to send a gloating text to a Hawk buddy. It was a truly great finals moment; just reward for a performance of energy, endeavour and enterprise – one that may well go down in the pantheon of great Hawthorn finals moments along with Dermie’s first quarter mark and goal in 89, Stewie Dew’s famous five minutes in 08 or Buddy’s 55 metre winner on the siren in 07 against the Crows – when with just over four minutes to go and the game still in the balance, Pav gathered the loose ball and coolly slotted the sealer from 45 out at the Jolimont end! Freo had won and Geelong was out of the finals! We’re really in with a chance now.

Sure our victory over Collingwood the night before was a glorious and courageous and all that, but even when the siren rang the spectre of Geelong still hung over us like a pall. But Freo lifted that and like new religious converts who can suddenly see the light, Hawk fans can now make out a clear and direct path to the Grand Final.

It was a fantastic weekend; with Hawthorn’s mighty win over the Pies and Freo knocking out bogey team Geelong, only an invite to a snooker night with Prince Harry or a torrid night of passion with Marieke Hardy could have made it more exhilarating and exciting.

We shouldn’t get too excited by Freo knocking out Geelong; after all, we might have to play the Dockers now and it’s scary to think how many goals Pavlich might kick on Schoenmakers. But we can enjoy the moment, particularly coming so soon after our own famous victory.

The missing

The expectant mood in the Bullring bar was brought down a peg or two when the news came through that Lewis was out. Not only was he our best finals performer last year, but it meant that from a likely starting 22 the week before, we were now missing Lewis, Guerra and Young; being replaced by Ellis, Murphy and Savage respectively. Not a terrible trio it’s true, but Ellis lacks Lewis’ he-man hardness and Wolverine beard, Murphy doesn’t have Guerra’s poise or Beatles rug, and Savage can’t boast Young’s pace or penetrating kick, but does at least have a sleek, suedehead cut.

Still, we reflected, when we beat Collingwood in Round 17 we were missing Franklin and Hodge, so if we can cover those two, we can cover just about anyone.  Then it got worse when Whitecross went down early in the first quarter.

And then what do you know? Ellis and Savage played as well as we could hope – perhaps even as well as the players they replaced. In the first quarter Savage took a handball from Buddy and rolled it through form the pocket; in the second quarter he kicked one on the run from 50, then got a pass to Buddy right on the half time siren.

Recalling Ellis’ fantastic game in the 08 Grand Final, he might just be a finals specialist. He gathered kicks all over the ground, his passing was precise, in the third he smothered a Collingwood clearance, gathered and kicked forward to Gunston who goaled. Then he soccered through the opening goal of the final term.  He was among our best players.

Murphy did most of what he was asked – spoiling and clean kicking. A poorly judged double fist over the line when he could have marked and a 50 metre penalty to gift Krackouer a goal were his only mistakes, and in such a fierce and frenetic game, that’s not too bad.

The match

Friday 7 September was a momentous day in world affairs – not only was Hawthorn opening its finals campaign against Collingwood, but Bob Dylan released his new album, ‘Tempest’, a title, as it turns out, that is quite apposite to the gusty and fiery mood of the match.

And if one of the tracks from the album called ‘Pay in Blood’ aptly describes how Hawthorn heroically withstood Collingwood’s premeditated dirty tactics (by the end so many Hawthorn players had bandages around their heads they resembled escapees from the recent Tutankhamun exhibition), then we can lift a line from the second track to describe the dilemma of any match correspondent with the task of assessing Hawthorn’s performance: “I’m searching for phrases to sing your praises.” For Hawthorn was fantastic. In a tight, intense battle, our boys showed resilience, patience and flair, and kept the ball moving forward relentlessly at all times.

Buddy spent the best part of the first quarter being subjected to Tarrant’s attempt at some form of frottage mixed with BDSM tactics, replete with slaps, verbal abuse and groping. I mean some people are into that sort of thing, and I’m not suggesting Buddy isn’t, or that he didn’t enjoy it, but there’s a time and place…and that is after midnight at The Peel.  And even there you generally get to choose someone more alluring than Tarrant. Certainly someone better dressed.

But after 17 minutes without a goal, the entire crowd was being tormented by a sort of sexual frustration – until Hodge finally got sick of it, dug the ball out of a pack in the forward pocket, said “Out of the way for fuck’s sake!” and banged one through. At that point it didn’t seem like we were in for a 20 goals to 15 game, but it seems it only took one goal for the players to remember what they were there for and to get on with kicking more. A couple of (ordinary) Collingwood goals were then followed by a strong Birchall challenge and interception and a pass to Cyril who goaled from the square. Sublime.

Collingwood hit the front again in the second quarter before Hawthorn scored three late goals leading into half time: one to Smith, one to Hale from a free kick (more on that in The Maxwell factor, below), and one to Buddy after the siren. An 18 point half time lead was good, but the better signifier was how well they were playing: Mitchell, Sewell, Gibson, Breust, Ellis and Rioli, were all playing superb games, and Buddy was just beginning to get warm.

The Maxwell factor

Fairly or unfairly, Nick Maxwell is thought by many football fans to be the worst captain in the AFL. This of course is entirely subjective. I can’t think of any off the top of my head who are definitively worse, but I don’t even know the captains of the Bulldogs or Port Adelaide, so I wouldn’t want to rush to ill-considered judgement. Although having seen the Bulldogs play this season, I’m not certain they have a captain. But even so, Maxwell didn’t exactly do anything on Friday night to turn around public sentiment.

In the second quarter at a stoppage Maxwell put a blatant block on Buddy about 20 metres away as our man prepared to run past the contest towards goal – presumably planning to collect the ball on the way through. The free kick was awarded to Hale who goaled at a crucial moment. (To see vision of Buckley carrying on in the box about umpiring at this point – with a free kick count of 10-3 in Collingwood’s favour was truly laughable – even by the high benchmark of Collingwood whingeing).

In the third quarter, Maxwell, having not learned, runs at Puopolo approximately 30 metres off the ball and breaks his nose. The umpire was going to award the free kick but Hawthorn went on and kicked the goal anyway. Quite rightly Maxwell was reported.

In the final quarter, Hodge marked on an acute angle and as the umpire asked him to get back five metres, Maxwell actually took two steps forward to within about five inches of Hodge – a 50 metre penalty was duly awarded and Hodge’s difficult kick from the pocket became a straight forward shot from the goal square.

It also didn’t escape my notice that it was Maxwell against whom Whitecross was competing for a mark when he sustained his knee injury. Now I’m not suggesting that Maxwell acted in any way that brought about Whitecross’ injury, I’m just highlighting the coincidence that he was there when The Poo went down, and he was on hand when Whitecross went down. You draw your own conclusions.

So in total, I make it a behind the play hit leading to a report and two week suspension, giving away a free kick and crucial goal when scores were close and giving away a 50 metre penalty leading to another goal, which I’ll call the sealer. Nice work Nick. Captain’s effort. The good news for Collingwood fans is that he won’t be playing for the next two weeks, so they might yet rebound.

The momentum

I’m not going to slavishly detail every goal, great as they all were, but it would be remiss of me not to highlight the nice two goal turnaround early in the third due to Collingwood’s clumsy ill-discipline. Cloke had marked close to goal when Tarrant put Buddy down behind play. The ball was taken off Cloke and Buddy got it down our end where Hale marked and goaled. Also in the third quarter The Rough tapped the ball through the legs of a Collingwood defender and on to Cyril who ran in and goaled. Brilliant.

And I should also highlight the opening minutes of the final quarter, when we transformed a lead of 24 points to a match winning 49 points within the space of a few minutes. Firstly, Ellis soccered it off the ground for a goal. Then Shiels kicked a long ball in; Franklin marked and dished off to The Rough who ran into an open goal. Smith then kicked forward and Hodge marked in the pocket, and goaled after a 50 metre penalty. Hawks intercepted, Cyril got it to Buddy. Big goal! Then Buddy finished off with one more and struck a pose that all the papers could use in the next day’s papers.

All the match lacked was a shot of Eddie looking glum in the grandstand.

It was a great final and (a)rousing victory. I can’t actually remember us playing Adelaide or Freo, but presumably we did and we must have beaten them, so we’ve got a real chance against any of the remaining teams. We’re getting close and pre-season predictions are gradually turning to expectation and blind hope into hype.

Final scores: Hawthorn  20  15  135  d  Collingwood  15  7  97

Buddy goal tally – 4 = 63  Buddy behind tally – 3 = total, 55

What we loved: the Hawthorn crowd. It’s not often that a team can match Collingwood for support at a final, but the brown ‘n’ gold contingent were loud and colourful, and perhaps even made up the majority of the crowd. We certainly drowned them out.

Also, in The Final Story documentary about the 1975 Grand Final screened on Channel 7 on Sunday, Big Al Martello looks younger now than he did nearly 40 years ago in the mid 70s. Leon Rice on the other hand…