Can Hawthorn overcome its Perth travel bug?
There was a quite strange and very un-Hawthorn moment yesterday, hidden behind all the mouth-foaming about Ryan Crowley’s unlikely return for the Dockers and what it could mean for Hawk midfielder Sam Mitchell. Probably expecting Mitchell’s teammate Jordan Lewis to go through the motions and just say what everyone wanted to hear (Mitchell himself had referred to the spectre of Crowley as a “sexy story” though, so you never can underestimate these guys), reporters asked what sort of psychological blow had been inflicted on Hawthorn’s players by the heavy Domain Stadium loss to the Eagles a fortnight back.
“We were intimidated a little by the crowd,” was Lewis’ frank and frankly surprising response. Then he went further: “…it shouldn’t have come as a shock but we probably weren’t ready for it.” Hawthorn players were unprepared? “We got overawed by it a little bit,” Lewis concluded. Given that it’s the Dockers hosting the Hawks and not the other way around, you have to assume that such statements don’t count as reverse psychology. Won’t Docker fans now get even rowdier? Or is it reverse-reverse psychology? Negative + negative = …hang on, that’s just plain old psychology.
Anyway, even if they’re the ones driving all this chatter there’s a few more pressing concerns for Hawthorn. For the second week running they’re without key forward Jack Gunston and they’ve also been hampered in their preparations by flight delays across to Perth. But the Hawks blew a perfectly capable Adelaide side away last week - annihilated them - despite the fact that not every planet has aligned so far in the finals. The three-peat is still in play.
Bonus: this game will be coming to you via the Guardian goal-by-goal live blog.
The Dockers look like sitting ducks
In keeping with the theme of wild and potentially disastrous predictions (hello North Melbourne supporters) it’s probably time to once more register this blog’s pessimism about the merits of Ross Lyon’s minor premier Dockers. As hard as they were to beat all season and as good as both Nat Fyfe and David Mundy (can an All-Australian still be considered underrated?) have been in 2015, this is a side that almost lost to a depleted Sydney a fortnight ago and whose spine is looking more than a little creaky. Defender Luke McPharlin is limping towards the finishing line while Aaron Sandilands and Matthew Pavlich will have been especially glad for a week’s holiday.
Fremantle’s hopes rest on dominating the clearances as they did against Sydney and exposing Hawthorn’s occasionally plodding defensive efforts. Both Brian Lake and James Frawley have looked vulnerable in recent weeks, which rather cancel’s out the Dockers’ lack of irresistible marking targets. As ever, Michael Walters and Hayden Ballantyne carry the scoring burden but they’ll need a hand from their midfielders as well if they’re even a small percentage down on normal output. Chris Mayne has to stand up and be counted too, otherwise Josh Gibson will swat and boot away forward entries all night.
Pleasingly, Dockers ace Nat Fyfe was back to his scything best against the Swans and Lachie Neale really delivered in the heightened state of finals football. Mundy is simply a proven big-game performer. We know that Fremantle are tough and will defend grimly, but last drinks are being called on a few Docker careers and you wonder whether the sparkle is spread a little thin at this point. Hawthorn players live for games like this one. The Dockers have a multitude of reasons to dread them.
North Melbourne could be in for another Preliminary Final ordeal
With no disrespect to North Melbourne’s spirited effort against the Swans last week, their major achievement in this finals series might prove to be their against-the-odds triumph over a full-strength and in-form Richmond during week one. Conversely, the Swans were decimated by injuries, out of gas and thus ripe for the picking last week. Away to a rampaging West Coast, North’s eventual fate might make last year’s 71-point Preliminary Final loss to Sydney look like a picnic.
Perhaps it’s better to focus on the positives. The Roos did actually beat an anemic Eagles side in Tassie earlier this season. Ben Cunnington and Jack Ziebell are beasts around the contest and won’t give Priddis, Gaff and Shuey a single easy possession. Key forwards Jarrad Waite and Drew Petrie blast through packs like cavalry and at this point actually provide a better forward structure than that boasted by Fremantle in the other game. Even more importantly, Brent Harvey and Shaun Higgins are approaching optimal form and thus a constant threat.
But this one still looks a bridge too far, even for a side so hell-bent on defying expectations as Brad Scott’s. Most neutrals find it hard not to join Tiger fans in pondering the stomach-churning what-if’s of Elimination Final week because at their best Richmond was capable of winning games like this one. Not so North, you’d have to conclude. They received a Domain Stadium thumping at the hands of the Dockers in Round 8 and it’s hard to say with any confidence that result will be any happier here. If they pull it off it’ll be a bona fide sporting miracle.
The Eagles just need to get the job done
As North Melbourne and Sydney’s players bashed away at each other for three hours of grim, dour football last weekend, West Coast coach Adam Simpson surely rubbed his hands together in glee and swung his feet up onto the coffee table. His side had already obliterated Hawthorn and earned themselves a week off, so they enter this penultimate hurdle in raging hot form and possessing a well-earned sense of self-belief. Right now they’re staring down the Washington Generals. Defeat is simply not in the script.
When assessing finals fixtures you can tie yourself in knots assessing all the likely permutations of the game but at a very basic level, West Coast just have a superior list of 22 players running out in front of a rabid home crowd. Everywhere you look there are likely positional winners; All-Australians Matt Priddis, Andrew Gaff and Josh Kennedy in career-best form; Nic Naitanui (his duel with Todd Goldstein will be popcorn stuff) and Luke Shuey not far behind.
But there’s also intimidating reserves of ‘depth’ players, in this case not a pejorative term. If you stop the aforementioned midfielders the likes of Elliot Yeo, Mark Hutchings, Matt Rosa and Jamie Cripps can cut you to ribbons as well. If Kennedy is down then Mark LeCras, Jack Darling and Josh Hill pick up the slack. Then there’s the trusty role players like Ellis, Butler and Wellingham. Even back-up ruckman Callum Sinclair is a threat around the ground and heading towards goal. That’s without getting to Shannon Hurn and his well-organized back six.
It’s pretty simple really. West Coast are too fast, too skillful and too potent to drop a game like this on their home patch. What unfettered joy for a fanbase that ended last season wondering if they were on a slide.
Bonus: this game will also be coming to you via the Guardian goal-by-goal live blog.
The best and worst of the rest – the trade sagas continue
Possibly a little relieved that they no longer have to overenthusiastically laugh at his jokes or rush to open doors for him, Adelaide now bid Patrick Dangerfield and his outsized talents adieu with the gun midfielder set to move back home to Victoria on a lucrative long-term deal, possibly with Geelong but other suitors hover too. Then there’s Dons forward Jake Carlisle, who might now end up a Bulldog; a genuinely appealing proposition for any player right now. St Kilda, Carlton and North Melbourne are also believed to be in with a chance of securing his services.
But those two are proven talents. Slightly less believable to outsiders would be the industrial quantities of ink, megabytes and breath that have been expended this week on the desire of Collingwood’s zero-game midfielder Nathan Freeman to orchestrate a trade to St Kilda. It’s getting a little harder to bemoan this sort of thing though, to be honest. Aren’t we all just pawns in the sports-industrial complex? For all the talk of loyalty and ‘repaying’ the club who has ‘stood by him’ through two years of injury setbacks, you sort of wonder whether the average fan would apply the same outmoded concepts of unconditional loyalty in their own career moves. One suspects not.
Still, Freeman is leaving one of the best-resourced sporting organisations in the land and a team that is going places, which leaves us with more questions than answers and much room to speculate. He’ll get his trade one way or another, but it also does make you wonder what sort of rod he’s made for his own back. If he’s granted a three-year contract on a decent wedge, it’ll come with the kind of expectations that could make this present furor seem convivial.
Last but not least, Sydney’s Lewis Jetta has nominated Western Australia as his preferred destination and he’ll also probably get there, regardless of perceptions surrounding one of the more insipid individual performances in recent finals history. In the end Jetta was of greater assistance to his team when subbed off. Hopefully his new club extracts a little more from him in coming Septembers.
