Round 21 – Hawthorn v Collingwood

Friday 16 August, MCG

Blowin’ in the wind

“Kick it to Buddy!”
– photo: zimbio.com

Surely every footballer’s dream is to one day be able to say, “I pinpointed Buddy with a lace out pass 30 metres from goal in front of more than 70,000 people at the ‘G’.” Well, Tyson Goldsack can now legitimately make this boast to his children and his grand children; the fact that he did it while playing for the opposition is the part of the story he might want to omit or conceal in the footnotes.
It came courtesy of a botched kick-in that shanked off his boot and went straight to Buddy who was guarding space, as they say, 30 metres from goal. Buddy went back, ran around on his natural arc to allow for the wind, banged it on his boot and duly slotted his fourth for the night and, according to Bruce, his 300th overall at the MCG. This gave us a 26 point lead midway through the third quarter, sapped any shred of belief left in Collingwood, and perhaps made Maxwell wish he hadn’t given Buddy a mouthful on half time.

The answer my friend is blowin’ in the wind…you just have to allow for it when shooting for goal.

The goal posts at the City end – a 4 to 5 goal breeze

Two weeks ago when we lost to Richmond in the midst of dire storm warnings I turned to Bob Dylan’s apocalyptic fable ‘A Hard Rain’s-A- Gonna-Fall’ to help me try and understand what had occurred.

This week’s wild, blustering conditions also bring to mind an early Dylan song, ‘Blowin’ in the Wind,’ in which the young singer, seeking some sort of transcendence, poses a series of philosophical questions to try and explain the human condition and locate meaning in the universe. The answer to these questions, the song asserts, is ‘blowin’ in the wind’.

If this is true there’s a fair chance ‘the answer’ was swirling and gusting about with the chip packets, pie wrappers, deflated thunder sticks and other assorted debris at the MCG on Friday night. The squall was such that if you turned the MCG light towers into wind turbines you could have generated enough energy to power Victoria for the next decade.

Is it coincidence, or is Bob just prescient? Because the first hint that cosmic riddles would be solved came when Lewis marked 30 out and kicked our first goal, always a happy portent.

But ‘the answer’ was also evident in several other acts through out the night. In the first quarter you only have to look to Cyril’s two touch soccer goal, the first touch taking the ball out of Pendlebury’s lunging reach and the second touch hammering it into the back of the net.  Buddy and Smith both kicking truly from set shots, Whitecross snapping it around his body for a goal and Breust roving it from Roughead’s deft tap to kick another. Perhaps the most resounding answer in the first quarter came with Cloke shooting right on the siren from 15 metres and missing badly to the left.

Life, the Universe and Everything

Sewell (12) started well, having 13 disposals in the first quarter, as did Hale (10) winning the ball and having three shots on goal – they all missed but it gave Collingwood someone other than Buddy and Rough to worry about. Birchall (14) was showing in his first game back that he hadn’t lost his touch and Gibbo (6), as ever, was strong in defence.

Douglas Adams reveals in his ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ series that the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything is 42, which strangely enough, is also the sum of Sewell, Hale, Birchall and Gibbo’s jumper numbers. Am I stretching the point or is that just spooky?

In the second quarter you might find the ‘answer’ in Cyril’s brilliant touch to set up two more goals: the first after taking three bounces to scoot away from the throng and fire a handball over the top to Smith in the goal square; the second when he somehow slid between Swan and Sinclair to fire a pass to Gunston directly in front.

The answer was also evident in Buddy receiving three free kicks in the space of three minutes – a sure sign there was enchantment in the air. An even clearer sign of paranormal activity was that he kicked two of them. The answer was blowin’ in the wind alright, and it was giving Buddy a helpful right-to-left fade on his kick.

The Max Factor

All of the free kicks were fairly clear, despite Collingwood fans booing (their default form of expression), it’s still against the rules to simply charge someone who is going for a mark, as was the case with two of the decisions. In the case of the third free kick it’s hard to know exactly what Maxwell was attempting to do, snuggle Buddy perhaps – he’s only human, but whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t going for the ball. Or perhaps the umpire had simply read Matthew Scarlett’s book and, agreeing with his assessment, had no respect for Maxwell as a player.

Right on half-time Buddy misfired a look-away handball that Blair intercepted and goaled for Collingwood – their third in a matter of minutes – bringing the margin back to 15 points at the break. In light of Scarlett’s view, it was amusing to see Maxwell mouthing off in Buddy’s face. Maxwell giving it to Buddy. Seriously! That would be the Buddy who had already kicked three goals, the Buddy who had single-handedly destroyed Collingwood on several occasions, the Buddy who leapt over players to kick a 75 metre goal in Round 2 – he Buddy who Maxwell had never once had the courage to take on as his primary opponent.

Remember this one Nick?
– photo:theaustralian.com

It is pretty much generally accepted among footy fans that Nick Maxwell is the worst player who is captain of his club. But there is also a growing groundswell of opinion among footy fans that he is in fact the worst player in the AFL, period, and these, I should add, are principally Collingwood fans. He should call his autobiography ‘Third Man Up’.

With three quick goals and on the back of Quinten Lynch’s courageous act of flattening Sam Mitchell from behind and well off the ball, Collingwood were full of huff and puff on the siren – pushing, shoving, mouthing off and jumper punching. They swaggered off at half-time chests out, tatts glistening, full of bluster and belief. I mean Quinten, Steele, Heath, Tyson and Travis may sound like a boy band, but these fellas are tough. We’re just fortunate Clinton and Tarkyn weren’t playing.

Melbourne Writers Festival fever: book lovers jostle to get Nick Maxwell to sign their copy of ‘Holdin’ the Line’ by Matthew Scarlett
– photo: theage.com

So Collingwood came out for the third quarter fired up, fervent, spurred on and ready to roll…and scrambled through just three behinds for the quarter.

Finding all the answers, the Hawks booted 3.4, including Buddy’s goal from Goldsack’s kick-in, plus another to Whitecross after Buddy won possession, wheeled around onto his left, but instead of launching one of his long, curling shots on goal from 50, he speared a pass to Whitecross, who ran into an open goal. Beautiful!  Nick Maxwell nowhere to be seen.

In the final quarter, after a brief flurry from Collingwood, the answering goals came first from Hill with a snap around the body, before Rough ended the argument with an emphatic kick from outside 50.

It was another great win for the Hawks with Hodge (15), Whitecross (11) and Smith (16) among our best – hang on, 15 + 11 + 16, there’s the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything again, 42. Can there be any lingering doubt that Hawthorn is central to some mysterious, overarching cosmic plan. Hawthorn is the answer.

Evoking Bob Dylan to once again illustrate a Hawthorn win may seem far-fetched and fanciful to some, but there is a long standing connection between Dylan and Hawthorn. It goes right back to his 1965 album, Highway 61 Revisited, which, as the title shows, makes no secret that it’s looking back at our first premiership, while his 1966 album, Blonde on Blonde, is a fairly clear reference to our recruiting policy of the mid 90s.

Runneth over with blue cups

After the match Luke Hodge was presented with the Beyond Blue cup, a trophy so named to help raise awareness of depression.

This complements the Blue Ribbon cup we were awarded the previous week after defeating St.Kilda, a trophy named in memory of police sergeants Gary Silk and Rodney Miller who were killed in the line of duty.

And on Sunday, Aberfeldie’s Under 14 Division 5 team – for whom my son Oscar plays, and who happen to wear jumpers with two blues – won their Grand Final in a stirring come from behind win. As great as Hawthorn’s victory over Collingwood was; it was the boys wearing the Aberfeldie two-blue jumper who made the weekend a truly memorable one for football.  That’s him with the cup.

Now there’s just one more cup to go…

Final scores: Hawthorn 18 11 119  d  Collingwood 12 12 84.

What we learned: well, the answer my friend, and it’s Hawthorn.

What we already knew: the goal review system is being operated by which ever video illiterate third umpire is in charge of the remote control at The Ashes in England. How else to explain the fiasco in the second quarter that resulted in Taylor Duryea scoring the first rushed goal in AFL history?

The ball spilled in the goal square and Blair flung his boot at it as Taylor Duryea dived to knock it through with his palm. The goal went for review where it clearly showed Duryea tap it with an open palm over the line – it was so obvious they could have paid a free against him for a ‘deliberate’ behind. Blair’s toe was nowhere near the ball – yet somehow this was called inconclusive. Chan-Tha watching from San Francisco could see that it was touched – I have the text to prove it.