Transformed Hawks Dare To Succeed
The Age
Monday April 3, 2006
FOR a complete half at Launceston's Aurora Stadium yesterday, Hawthorn and Fremantle played a game beset by paralysis. It was a contest that looked frantic and certainly kept the statisticians busy, but was, in truth, a creative void.
For their own reasons, neither side was prepared to be bold with the ball. Hawthorn, apparently terrified of the counterattack, moved the ball inside its own 50-metre arc a dozen times in the first 20 minutes but did so like a team playing keepings-off, and deservedly got a return of one behind.But then Fremantle, a team that will either succeed or be reduced to rubble this year, took 57 uncontested marks in the opening quarter, playing with even less daring.There were many on both sides prepared to sacrifice themselves to win the football, but few, beyond Mark Williams, prepared to be imaginative with it.It was an exhibition of small-target football, the timid style of game teams adopt when they are more afraid of failure than they are confident of success. The bigger and bolder your vision, the more there is to criticise in the event of defeat. And so you show as little of yourself as possible. To half-time, hundreds of possessions and perhaps as many kilometres run by the players had produced nine goals and a five-point lead to the Hawks that could as easily have been Fremantle's.And then this game seemingly without a fuse ignited. From the centre square, Hawthorn launched a third-quarter blitz that was finished by Williams, who kicked three of his eight goals for the match and put an unassailable 42 points between the teams at the last change.Sam Mitchell and Luke Hodge, the first creative by hand and the second by foot, drove the football from the centre with an audacity that Fremantle, seemingly stunned by the sudden change in nature of the Hawks' play, did not cope with. The Hawthorn pair, working at the feet of Robert Campbell, who played one of his best games for the club given that his opponent was the imposing Aaron Sandilands, were responsible for a staggering nine centre-bounce clearances to one in the quarter.Fremantle coach Chris Connolly was still wondering after the match about the transformation. In a game he argued had been heavily flooded, an observation few others shared, he said such dominance from the middle was simply game-breaking. "You can't go past that. It was crucial."His counterpart, Alastair Clarkson, agreed: "The work of Robbie Campbell, Sam Mitchell and Luke Hodge was first-class. That third quarter was the difference between the two sides in the end, when they split the game open."Williams was good enough to profit most from the shift, but many other Hawks, emboldened by the work of their leaders in waiting, suddenly looked to create where they had before looked to retreat. A side that had kicked 1.1 in the first term kicked 9.2 in the third. Possessions began to count, not just mount, and to the likes of Shane Crawford, Chance Bateman and captain Richie Vandenberg the field seemed to be a giant expanse teeming with opportunities.This was never the case for the Dockers, who sugar-coated the result but not the truth of their performance with the last five goals of the game. Matthew Pavlich, playing against an undersized Joel Smith, typified his team's day. The man who has been an All-Australian centre half-forward, centre half-back and full-back was held to 11 possessions - and his only goal came in the garbage-time spree.It could not be said that he did not try, but it is beyond doubt that he was never bold.DETAILSHAWTHORN1.1 5.4 14.6 17.7 (109)FREMANTLE2.1 4.5 7.6 13.9 (87)GOALS - Hawthorn: Williams 8, Dixon 2, Crawford 2, Everitt, Roughead, Vandenberg, Croad, Bateman.Fremantle: Longmuir 3, McPharlin 3, Farmer 3, Medhurst 2, Pavlich, Bell.BEST - Hawthorn: Williams, Mitchell, Hodge, Smith, Bateman, Crawford, Vandenberg, Croad.Fremantle: Headland, Hasleby, Johnson, Longmuir, Bell.UMPIRES: McBurney, Schmitt, Grun. CROWD: 13,862 at Aurora Stadium, Launceston.
© 2006 The Age
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