HAWTHORN Â Â 4.4 Â Â Â Â 7.8 Â 11.11 14.15 Â Â Â (99)
WEST COAST Â 0.2 Â Â Â Â 4.5 Â Â 7.8 Â Â 7.11 Â Â Â (53)
GOALS Hawthorn: Rioli 4, Sicily 4, McEvoy, Gibson, Â Gunston, Lewis, O'Rourke, Breust.Â
West Coast: Darling 3, Cripps, Kennedy, McGovern, Redden.
Umpires: Ryan, Meredith, O'Gorman.
Official Crowd: 42,977 at the MCG.
Football world to Hawthorn, muttered through gritted teeth: "Sorry." Hawthorn: "Louder!" Football world, head still lowered, eyes darting:Â "Sorry. SORRY, damn you." Hawthorn: "That's better."
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Hawks repeat grand final misery for Eagles
Hawthorn have made light work of their grand final opponents, romping home by 46 points.
Hawthorn had come for grand final redux. West coast were intent on grand final reset. On paper, it was going to be different. Hawthorn were changed by eight players from the grand final. Some of the absentees won't be back for a long time, some never. West Coast was changed by six players, but mostly for the better, or so it seemed. Paper? This paper ended up in the recycling bin.
You know how it goes. Here's Josh Gibson again. They say he's behind the ball, but actually, he's where the ball always is when it comes into Hawthorn's defence, which is his running joke on the football world, because the whole idea of attack is to give it to the attacker, not the defender. He had 44 possessions. Here's Sam Mitchell, where he's unfailingly been these last 10 years or so, no further than arm's length from the ball, lightning fast hands, mega-fast mind, 360-degree AND 20/20 vision. Who has that? He had it 37 times. "Solid contributions," said coach Alastair Clarkson. That's the standard the Hawks work to; that's what we forgot.
Here's Jack Gunston, threading one from the forward pocket. For variation, here's James Sicily, doing the same. Three more would follow. Sicily is true to his name, small, but looms large, just the thing for end of a boot. Here was a Cyril Rioli tackle, a Paul Puopolo mark on the lead, a Jordan Lewis touch of class. These are the game's givens, staples like bread, milk and toilet paper. How did we ever doubt? Sorry, Hawks.
So running is where football is at, yes? But why run when you can kick like Hawthorn? Kicks get to their destination sooner, with the laces already out, and once they're in the air they don't make bad decisions. Runners slow down. Kicks don't.
Every club has a defensive system, and a fancy name for it. Hawthorn's is Clarkson's cluster. But Hawthorn's winning tactic this day was Operation Starvation. Simply, they kept the ball off West Coast. In the first quarter, the Hawks doubled the Eagles for possession and tripled them for inside 50s. When finally the Eagles got their hands on the ball in the back pocket, Sicily intercepted what looked like a perfectly sensible handball and kicked the goal anyway. Sicily is supposed to be one of the ways the Hawks are not quite as good as last year. Jonathan O'Rourke's another. OK, we might have been wr .. wr ... wrong.
This wasn't some perennial also-ran, a no-hoper, Brisbane. This was last year's runners-up and this year's premiership favourite. "Dose of reality," said coach Adam Simpson. Hawthorn phobia? MCG phobia? Lesson in expectations? Simpson did not deny any of it. Mostly, though, he said it was that the Eagles couldn't get the ball. They had given the Hawks a quarter's head start, when everyone knows you can't even give them a toenail's start.
West Coast did improve. Andrew Gaff put a bit of stamp on the game, Josh Kennedy toiled honestly and Jack Darling kicked a few goals. Without ever really looking like it, they crept to within four goals late in the third quarter. Asked if Darling's goals were a little consolation, Simpson held up thumb and forefinger, a couple of millimetres apart. Without ever really looking like it, West Coast crept to within four goals late in the third quarter.
But that was it. Here was a Rioli goal, off a step, and an O'Rourke goal, off not even a step, and Rioli again, pouncing. No-one ever has pounced quite like Rioli, whether on an opponent or a goal. And here, as a matter of poetic justice, was Gibson, rolling up out of defence to attach himself to the end of a Bily Hartung handball and kick a goal, his first ever for Hawthorn. Justly, the Hawks mobbed him. Now there was a tick in every column.
By final siren, the Hawks had had the ball 165 times more than the Eagles. Combing more finely, they had it in uncontested play twice as much. They marked it twice as often. They had it forward twice as often. They were on the end of their own handballs twice as often. If the statisticians had counted the kicks when the crowd tumbled onto the ground at match's end, they still would have come up with a lesser number than Hawthorn's tally.
At day's beginning, the Hawks had unfurled their flag. Actually, they unfurled three, the way they won them, one after another, fluttering down from the grandstand roof. Of the 2008 pennant, there was no sign. It has become Hawthorn's spare premiership, to be talked about when sick of the other three. Or will it be the other four?
For the rest of the football world, this was sobering. West Coast just took one for the side. So, Western Bulldogs, it's over to you. Meantime from the rest of us, growling, scowling, but also bowing: "Sor-ree. Hawthorn."