HAWTHORN 4.3 Â 6.6 Â 14.13 Â 17.14 (116)
FREMANTLE 3.0 Â 7.2 Â 7.4 Â 11.9 (75)
Goals: Hawthorn: J Gunston 3, L Breust 3, B McEvoy 2, T O'Brien 2, B Hill, G Birchall, I Smith, J Gibson, J Lewis, J Sicily, P Puopolo. Fremantle: M Walters 2, C Mayne, D Mundy, E Langdon, H Ballantyne, H Crozier, J Griffin, L Neale, L Weller, S Hill.
Best: Hawthorn: Lewis, Smith, Gibson, Gunston, Hartung, Mitchell, Birchall, Howe. Fremantle: Neale, Walters, Mundy, Hill, Griffin, A Pearce, Spurr.
Umpires: Troy Pannell, Jacob Mollison, Jack Edwards.
Official Crowd: 12,012 at Aurora Stadium.
This all felt a little ominous, and the game had been running for less than two minutes. Chris Mayne had the Fremantle forward line entirely to himself as a kick flew inside 50: into his path, into his hands, onto his boot. From the very top of the goal square his shot … went through for a point.
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Hawks see off Dockers
After a tight first half, Hawthorn pull away to comfortably beat the Dockers.
But wait, there's more. A fair bit of it, actually. Mayne was called back to take a second kick, Kaiden Brand's willingness to chase, chase and chase ending a little unfairly for him when he was penalised for a slight push. Mayne made no mistake this time around, Stephen Hill snapped a second goal a few minutes later and Fremantle had something they haven't had in a while: the lead.
Hawthorn settled, as Hawthorn do. As everyone expected they would do. They had the wind and they used it: Ben McEvoy kicked a long goal, Jack Gunston kicked an even longer one and then took a mark in the middle of a pack, reading the ball better than any of the players around him. In the reverse of Mayne's moment, Luke Breust dodged Alex Pearce's tackle deep in the back pocket, stuck out his right arm, bounced off the point post, slipped by Cameron Sutcliffe and avoided Ethan Hughes' last-second lunge to kick his team's fourth goal in a row for the term.
So. That was it, then? Not quite. Fremantle kicked with the wind in the second quarter, and made faster use of it than the Hawks had. They ran really hard. They made play flow. Almost every time they headed towards goal they looked capable of scoring, by either manufacturing space or fighting for a second or third possession. Hayden Ballantyne snapped off a stoppage, shook a tackle and slid through a goal. Lachie Neale made his mark and subsequent set shot look simple.
Mayne wiped away that first-minute mistake, reaching a bouncing ball just before it was able to skid over the boundary line, gathering it, keeping his feet on the ground and his body upright then shooting a smart handball into the goal square, low and almost right onto Ed Langdon's boot.
Fremantle had kicked four goals to one before Luke Breust was held in the Hawthorn goal square two seconds before half-time. They had a chance to go further than two points ahead in the first minute of the third term but Ballantyne's set shot slid away late and then things got a whole lot harder.
Hawthorn, having handballed more than kicked through the first half, started to get their feet to the ball. They moved it quickly, with more urgency. By five minutes into the term it was tough to count how many spare players Fremantle had pushed back behind the ball: one, two or even three.
The speed at which the Hawks started to play made things happen and put the Dockers into positions where they began to panic and make mistakes. Tim O'Brien got a free kick and kicked a second lovely set shot from the pocket. Hill kicked the ball to Josh Gibson, who handballed to Grant Birchall and watched another long goal fly through.
The Dockers tried to hold everything up but it was impossible: Hawthorn's fourth goal for the term was perhaps created more easily than the rest, Mitchell finding Puopolo who found Hartung who found Hill, who cruised through the 50-metre line.
That goal pushed Hawthorn to a 25-point lead. But it got even more calamitous. Fremantle breathed a sigh of relief when a review denied Puopolo's soccer-kick on the goal line. Then David Mundy's kick-in was cut off by James Sicily. Then Cameron Sutcliffe's kick-in, after the Sicily shot missed, was cut off. By Sicily, who handballed to Jordan Lewis for one more goal.
Suddenly, the Dockers had a goalless term on the board. Only 15 of their 33 kicks for the quarter hit the mark. Suddenly Hawthorn had eight up, plus seven behinds, for a 51-point lead. They scored almost every one of the 18 times they went inside 50, either on their first effort or by getting the ball back; more than five goals' worth of their score came from intercepts close to goal.
The Hawks revved their collective engine, applied rapid, relentless pressure and made it impossible for Fremantle to even imagine getting close enough again to win, even during their two-goal start to the final term. They put their foot down and insisted they win while the Dockers looked like the Dockers have, occasionally upbeat, occasionally stubborn and occasionally capable, but very quickly helpless and in the end just not good enough.
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