Round 20 – Hawthorn v Port Adelaide

Sunday 12 August 2012, Aurora Stadium, Launceston

A closing ceremony to remember

A specky!

You can only sit back and enjoy the incredible ball skills; the athleticism and litheness, the pivots and precision passing, the slick teamwork and synchronicity, the immaculate control and choreography, the deft touches and dextrous taps, the graceful movement and of course the provocative glimpses of gusset. Really, watching the ball routine in the women’s group rhythmic gymnastics final at the Olympics was a lot like watching Hawthorn’s final quarter burst against Port, with the possible exception of the gusset shots, though if that’s what you’re looking for…

And all of this was without Buddy or Cyril. Imagine how much more sprightly and sinuous we’ll be with Buddy and Cyril back in the line-up, rolling the ball down one arm, across the back of their shoulders and then down the other, or bouncing it off their crotches into a team mate’s waiting arms.

Schoenmakers’ ball routine in the rhythmic gymnastics final

For while the closing ceremony of the Olympic Games was held in London on Sunday night London time, a far more dynamic and exciting closing ceremony took place in Launceston on Sunday afternoon. I mean as far as closing ceremonies go, how can you beat an 11 goal final quarter? Sure you can revive a lot of tired old performers from the 80s to trot out their old hits – George Michael, Annie Lennox, Ray Davies, Madness, Pet Shop Boys  – all we needed was Bob Geldof and it could have been Live Aid all over again; they even had Freddie Mercury and he’s been dead for 20 years.  But how does that compare to Hale taking a contested mark to slot our first for the quarter, with the scores perilously close at 17 points! Followed by Gilham, of all people.  Then one for the Poo, another to Hale, another to The Poo, one to Suckling, then Hodgey iceing his 200th game with a nice goal, a third for the quarter to The Poo, making it five for the match, then Hale again, followed by Lewis and finally at the 33 minute mark, Goo dobs one! In 28 minutes we’d increased our lead by 55 points, from 17 points to 72! Surely that’s a far more spectacular finale than supermodels on trucks, Spice Girls in cabs and Russell Brand in a psychedelic bus.

Just on Queen though, it was one thing for Freddie to kneel in front of Brian May in a faux fellatio posture as the guitarist cranked out another overly long solo – after all, that was Freddie – but for 24 year old Jessie J, wearing a flesh coloured leotard, to adopt a similar pose in front of the 65 year old May as she took Freddie’s vocals for We Will Rock You, well that was just a little bit disturbing. Though I’m sure it gave Brian’s ax work an extra edge. And full marks to Brian May, whose familiar mien, though greying, must exceed even John Platten in the most enduring hairstyle stakes.

Sacked coach syndrome

In the weeks leading up to this match it seemed like it would form part of a mini oasis for Hawthorn; playing Port and Gold Coast in between a series of tough battles with five of the top eight teams. Added to this was Hawthorn’s blistering form over recent weeks, even taking into account the narrow loss to Geelong (sorry to remind you), and Port’s poor form.  So there really should have been nothing to worry about. Then Port lost to competition bunnies, GWS.

On one hand this suggests they’ve reached a form nadir, meaning there should be even less reason for Hawks fans to worry. Then however, Port sacked their coach Matthew Primus. Setting aside questions of why they appointed him in the first place, this move introduced ‘sacked coach syndrome’ into the match dynamic. And as everyone knows, nothing spurs on a team like the knowledge that they’ve just brought about the premature dismissal of their coach. Caretaker coaches often enjoy an unlikely victory first up. Added to this, Buddy still wasn’t fit to play and on the morning of the match The Rough is ruled out.

Things didn’t get any better when the game started with Port attacking the ball, winning possession and running free to create space. All of which saw them take the first five shots at goal. Happily, they missed more than they kicked, and when we eventually scrapped the ball forward, Gunston was awarded a free kick. Then, what a surprise, Cyril goes down behind play. Who would have thought that in Buddha Hocking’s first match as coach, a Hawthorn star would be flattened behind play, miles from the ball? Good to see Hodge taking on the entire Port team at the break, though perhaps it would have been more entertaining to see Clarko and Buddha go at it.

Thankfully Cyril got up and got things going for us with a clearance and goal within 10 seconds of the second quarter. A couple more deft touches from Cyril and we’d added six in a row, including a couple to the ‘X man’, Xavier Ellis, in his return match. But with Cyril subbed off after being crunched again, and a hardly commanding 26 point lead, I was thankful we were only playing Port.

As it is they outscored us in the third quarter, and when Stewart kicked the first goal of the final quarter we were only 17 points up and it looked like sacked coach syndrome was taking effect. Cue the dancers and choirs for the 11 goal closing ceremony.

The Hawks weren’t quite as assured in this match as the 72 point margin suggests, and we are still overly reliant on Sam Mitchell. Though in this match Birchall was equally good and proved how crucial he is to our performance.

Final scores: Hawthorn 24  15  159 d Port Adelaide 13  9  87

What we liked: The X man returning to the team. Sure there were a couple of dinky kicks that became turnovers, but I like him anyway. And you’ve gotta love The Poo’s 5 goals.

In our five matches without Buddy, we’ve won four and in each of those someone has kicked 4 or 5 goals: Gunston 4 against the Bulldogs, Lewis and Breust 5 each against Collingwood, Hodge 5 and Suckling 4 against Essendon, Gunston 4 against Geelong and The Poo 5 and Hale 4 against Port. Still, would like to see Buddy back this week – the 100 goals 100 behinds dream has faded in the past five weeks, but he can still win the Coleman.

What we didn’t like: Cyril going down behind play. And Hartlett gets just two weeks! And tries to overturn it! And worse: Cyril out for 2-3 weeks.

What bemused us: Geelong coach Chris Scott complaining about the umpires in the West Coast game. He didn’t seem quite so quick to criticise the week previous when Cyril wasn’t paid a free kick for his tackle on Mitch Duncan. And if the deliberate out of bounds rule was being so misapplied, why did the Geelong players keep appealing every single time the ball went out of bounds – often before it crossed the line. Watch the video. Perhaps if Chris Scott’s players stopped overreacting and appealing, the umpires might make less of it.

And on the Cyril non-free kick, Gieschen commented that it wasn’t a free because Duncan was blindsided and hadn’t seen Rioli. So it was Cyril’s fault for being too fast! What’s he meant to do – send an advance text? If we needed any further evidence that you don’t put Richmond people in charge of anything, this was it. Leash the Giecsh I say.