HAWTHORN 6.7 13.7 17.9 23.13 (151)
ESSENDON 2.1 4.3 5.5 6.7 (43)
Goals: Hawthorn: Gunston 4, Breust 4, Puopolo 4, Rioli 3, Stewart 2, O'Brien 2, Smith, Shiels, Burgoyne, Langford. Essendon: Daniher 2, Bird, Merrett, Langford, Brown.
Best: Hawthorn: Lewis, Gibson, Burgoyne, Puopolo, Birchall, Smith, Gunston. Essendon: Merrett, Brown, Zaharakis, Parish.
Umpires: Kamolins, Mollison, Fleer. Official crowd: 27,567 at Etihad Stadium.
It is not just that Essendon is a ghost team this season, so their many rivalries have become translucently pale imitations of their usual selves. Anzac Day and the Dreamtime game both were fizzers. The Carlton match drew an only-just crowd. There was no marshmallow war with North Melbourne, and it is doubtful that West Coast fans will bother much with jacket-waving triumphalism in another Friday night penny-bunger later this month.
On Friday night, it was Hawthorn. In many ways, they have been the Bombers' testiest of the Bombers' betes noir. Think "hit man" and "line in the sand" and general institutional mutual loathing. But none of that was evident this night. It is even possible that the Hawks went home feeling something like pity for their old adversaries.
Essendon made an enthusiastic start, as teams aware of their inferiority often do, and soon were two Joe Daniher goals to the good. They continued to play with purpose and urgency and a discernible plan, and on raw ball-getting statistics matched it with Hawthorn. The difference was polish, that alchemy of handling, poise, precision and depth of vision. The Hawks had it everywhere.
Necessarily, the Bombers did not, since they consisted largely footballers who either have lost their gloss or are not yet fully buffed. Daniher, though, is coming up nicely. Hawthorn's defenders came up only to his waist and knew that trying to spoil him from behind was futile, so spoiled from in front instead. artfully, legally. It worked.
After the Bombers' early sally, the Hawks the kicked next 14 scores of the match. That was the heads of agreement signed; the rest of the night was a negotiation on price, with the Bombers' lawyers poring over the sub-clauses in the background, looking for a loophole. Credit where it is due: the Bombers might have tried to gum up the match with 80 defenders, or inch their way around the boundary line, but did not. They have nothing to lose this season anyway, but plenty to learn in anticipation of next season. This night became another page turned.
The Hawks worked on a bit of revision of their own. This night, they played James Sicily down back, not as might be supposed, for a rest, but to give him another and less glamorous look at the game. In the absence of Sam Mitchell, and the continuing absence of Luke Hodge, they were shaded by the Bombers for contested footy, tackles and clearances, an itch for them all season. You could hardly say it was a problem this night, because in the circumstances, one man's Achilles heel was the other's kryptonite. But next week, they play a real team in a real game.
This match dozed off. As on a training night, you watched the rotating play and talked about the election or the kids. For 10 minutes in the third quarter, neither team scored. At one stage, the advancing Bombers kicked directly to Hawthorn defenders half a dozen times in a row. It must have been the jumper clash.
But the Hawks also played like a team lulled. Coach Alastair Clarkson was earnest when he said that it had been a high-possession, high-energy game that exacted a toll on both teams, leading to the Hawks' slackening and chiding at three-quarter time. But he also said: "Coaches are only happy when they win the premiership. otherwise, they're always shitty about something. And I'm the worst."
In the last quarter, Hawthorn rallied again, kicked some goals, shelled some peas, ran out some bruises and widened the margin to 108 points. Reigning triple premiers have their dignity after all. The crowd was the smallest for a match between these teams for more than 25 years, and barely half that by match's end. But salute to the rump of Bombers fans who stayed to the bitter end and howled at a free kick and goal to Jack Gunston, without which the Bombers might have kept the scale of the defeat to double figures. It was their way of saying: wait until next year, you ...
Meantime, they treasure small gains. Though losing by so much, they won the possession count. Coach John Worsfold was wryly pleased about this. "A lot of what you've seen from us this year doesn't add up," he said.
You know how weird things are at Essendon this year when they invite the media into the rooms before and during the game instead of inviting them to leave. And good on them for that.