Qual Final – Hawthorn v Sydney Swans

Friday 6 September, 2013, MCG

Hawthorn’s mandate

Hugs all round 1
photo – bloomberg.com

It is tempting to draw an analogy between the Coalition’s victory in Saturday’s Federal election and Hawthorn’s victory in Friday night’s Qualifying Final. Both were favoured to win and both did so reasonably easily, but while the Coalition victory was clear very early in the contest, Hawthorn’s superiority wasn’t clear until beyond the half-way mark.

When you check the final scores, however, you see that the Coalition won 85 to 54, whereas Hawthorn’s victory was much a more emphatic 105 to 51. That’s what I call a mandate.

The Coalition may be boasting that ‘It’s Tony time’ but at Hawthorn, we‘re claiming it as ‘Hodgey’s hour’ or ‘Sammy’s stint’, for once again they were the stars of the night, along with David Hale and Brad Sewell.

Hugs all round 2
photo – zimbio.com

Newly appointed Minister
for Foreign Affairs
photo: zimbio.com

While it might also be tempting to find parallels between various individuals from both the Coalition and Hawthorn – for example, compare Tony Abbot’s and Luke Hodge’s steely resolve, Joe Hockey’s and Jarryd Roughead’s robust bullocking work, Christopher Pyne’s and Jack Gunston’s straight shooting – or at least the fact they both come from Adelaide, Malcolm Turnbbull’s and Buddy Franklin’s vast fortunes, you fall down when you come to Julie Bishop – for while Clarko might match her death stare, only Dermie can claim to have her hair and eye for matching accessories, and he’s long retired.

Five-time premiership player
for Hawthorn
photo: heraldsun.com.au

Besides, personally I list to the left politically, so comparing my Hawthorn heroes to right-wing neo-conservative enemies of the people such as Greg Hunt and as Sophie Mirabella leaves me feeling slightly ill.

Hung parliament – the first half

If we’re talking politics though, the first half of Friday night’s match resembled the previous parliament: tight, tenacious and tough with no clear winners and no side holding any real advantage.

Without Buddy and Cyril, it was hard to work out which team held the balance of power. For Hodge, Mitchell and Roughead, Sydney could boast Jack, Kennedy and O’Keefe.

There was the occasional highlight, such as Sammy’s extraordinary handball out in front of Roughead who ran onto it and kicked truly from 50, Bradley Hill’s run, Spangher’s first quarter goal and commanding presence, but mostly any ground gained was through a scrap – getting the ball forward was not unlike Gillard trying to get legislation though.

Going in at half time even on 4.7 each reflected how the match had been played. While we might have been lamenting the reduction in our scoring power without Franklin and Rioli, Sydney were finding it tough to score as well. Tippet was proving no real threat as yet, and Gibson, Lake and Guerra were matching them down back.

Ahead in the polls – Third quarter

After the struggle of the first half, the Hawks slowly and methodically edged ahead in the second.

At the end of last season we recruited Brian Lake as a tall, strong defender to help negate players like Kurt Tippet, particularly in the finals (although he had played brilliantly all year). And here we were playing against Tippet after his move from Adelaide to Sydney, a move, if we can allow ourselves to continue the election analogy, that had many football fans demanding of Sydney exactly what the ALP spent the entire campaign demanding of Abbott and Hockey – ‘show us your costings!’

Tippet had kicked two first quarter goals, but Lake had repelled many other opportunities and here he was early in the third running hard forward and doubling back to mark in front of Tippet 50 metres out. He then launched into a massive punt which sailed through! Lake had more than justified his recruitment with this kick alone. And it seemed to break something in Sydney, for a succession of Hawthorn goals ensued.

Some extraordinary running from Isaac Smith resulted in a pass to Bailey who marked 25 out from goal, and duly converted.

Hodge passed to Hale and Guerra passed to Shields, resulting in two more set shot goals and suddenly we had a four goal lead. We’d kicked four goals through Lake, Bailey, Hale and Shields. As a work colleague commented to me post match, ‘No Buddy, no Cyril, no worries’.

The Poo added a nice running goal after more nice ruck work from Hale – and we went into the final quarter with a four goal advantage.

The Landslide victory – the final quarter

We opened the final quarter with Roughead and Anderson both missing set shots, followed by O’Keefe kicking one for the Swans, and our lead was back to 19 points.

But before we had time to get anxious, Roughead had stabbed a bullet like pass to Gunston who kicked accurately. Further goals to Hale, Roughead and Anderson soon settled the matter and with it, any nerves.

Anderson’s goal came after a brilliant pack mark against two Swans, prompting the gentleman behind me to publicly declare his love for the 19 year old. He was probably in his late 40s, so I pointed out to him the age difference and the fact that Anderson was already married with a young child. These may constitute impediments, but true love, if it’s strong enough, will overcome all.

Our affections moved to Breust pretty quickly after he snapped truly to put us 51 points in front. By the end Spangher’s every possession (and to everyone’s surprise he was getting a few of them) was greeted with a roar where i was sitting – he was literally obtaining cult status as the match wore on. Jack Gunston continued the goal junket on the siren and the Hawks had secured power with a decisive 54 point victory.

 The Yays have it

A great start to finals campaign defeating our vanquishers from last season. With Buddy and Cyril to return, we’re looking strong just when we need to be strong.

Final scores: Hawthorn 15 15 105  d  Sydney Swans 7 9 51

What we learned: Think local – Act global. Just before the match we learnt that Cyril was out with an ankle injury! While this had been widely tipped, my efforts to track down the latest via the Hawthorn app, AFL app or The Age proved fruitless. I finally got the news from Chan-Tha who is holidaying in New York. Crawf has tweeted.

What we already knew: Spangher is the Saviour!  Well he looks like him at least. The idea that Matt Spangher was retaining his place in the team to replace the suspended Buddy Franklin was met with general mirth among most footy fans – particularly Hawthorn fans. It’s not that he doesn’t try or put in – he certainly does – but it’s fair to say he’s no Buddy. Which is perhaps unfair in itself, because the same could be said of most players. Whereas Buddy plays like the messiah, Spangher just looks like him. And as my friend Pete observed, he brings a decent full beard to the team that can compete more evenly with Sydney’s than the messy stubble that Hodge, The Poo and co. sport.

Freo – friend or foe?: Last year Fremantle did Hawthorn a favour by knocking out Geelong from the finals, whereas this year they’ve knocked them into our path – thanks Freo. Perhaps we deserve it for not being able to win it last year when they were out of the way.