Friday night’s clash between North Melbourne and Hawthorn provides plenty of opportunity to engage in the comforts of confirmation bias. Labouring a little under the suspicion that they’re not quite a flag contender in spite of their early season dominance, North Melbourne will by the end of the night have either beaten a side that doesn’t reach full throttle until finals time anyway, or else have lost in a clear indication that they’re mere pretenders to the Hawks’ throne.
Hawthorn, not unjustifiably, wield the kind of cosmic power over the rest of the competition which ensures that nobody dare even whisper that maybe they’re not quite up to it this year after all. North’s only sin thus far in 2016 has been in marginally exceeding expectations, Hawthorn’s ongoing one is that anything less than swaggering their way to another flag is a significant downturn. Yet they’re far from the team they’ve been even at the mid-way point of seasons past.
Last week the fifth-placed Hawks enjoyed a stat-boosting romp against Essendon, but it’s interesting to note their present percentage (119) – the lowest of any team in the top eight and only 11% higher than once-impotent Melbourne. Compare that to this time in 2013 (145.7), 2014 (148.4) and even 2015 (152.9), when they laboured along with two fewer wins than they have now as they sit at 9-3 before facing North.
Put perhaps a little simplistically, they’re neither blowing teams away as they once did nor stopping their opposition from scoring to the level you’d expect of a premier. Of the top eight, only Adelaide has conceded a higher average score and significant too is that two of the most obvious current contenders – Sydney and the Bulldogs – boast the two stingiest defences in the league, both conceding two goals fewer per game than Hawthorn. So North present a decent test, boasting similar scoring potency as the Hawks but so far, a sturdier defence.
It doesn’t take a genius to point out the role that the absence of Jarryd Roughead plays here, not just for its impact on the side’s basic structure and the flexibility therein, but that he’s an old-fashioned “barometer” player in a literal sense; Roughead recorded 35 more champion data ranking points per game in wins during the 2015 season, a ratio bettered by only five other elite players in the competition. When he was hot, so were the Hawks – an irresistible trait in an agile big man who is prolific in defensive acts, boasted 8.7 score involvements per game in 2015 and could be swung into the middle of the ground with equal effect. How do you even attempt to fill that gap?
In previous seasons there has been the creeping sense that Hawthorn would take out the premiership from wherever they sat come finals time, but it could just be that in 2016 – more than any other year – they really need to ensure a top four spot and a double chance. So games like this one take on greater significance. Their run home contains few gimmes. After their round 15 bye await end-on-end interstate trips to play Port Adelaide and Sydney, before a sequence against the variously hungry and inspired Richmond, Carlton, Melbourne, North again, West Coast (away) and then Collingwood to round out the season. By comparison the Bulldogs, for one, have a dream run.
Yet if the Hawks are looking to further rediscover their potency this week, North is not the worst opponent for them to face. They hammered the Roos by 10 goals last time and generally match up well, having taken seven of the last nine encounters between the sides. And as of writing, Roos stars Andrew Swallow, Ben Cunnington, Robin Nahas Nick Dal Santo and Shaun Atley are all under injury clouds and missing even a few of them, North is diminished considerably, particularly with respect to midfield accountability.
Perhaps the rest of this season actually presents Hawthorn with exactly the kind of challenge on which the very best thrive; overcome the string of regular season opponents who follow and the number of formidable ones who await in September and their position as the greatest side of the modern era is unquestionable.
Access denied
In a situation layered with multiple ironies, Adelaide forward Josh Jenkins this week used his ESPN Australia online column to bemoan the lack of access to AFL players currently being granted to the media by clubs. On face value we’d tend to agree. As it stands, getting five minutes with even peripheral figures at some lower-tier clubs is a negotiation process more convoluted than seeking a quote from a top-ranking member of Al-Qaeda.
In some respects Jenkins’ ideas are refreshing and in others clearly true, though his mention of HBO’s NFL Hard Knocks documentary series (if you haven’t seen it, think a pre-season version of Year of the Dogs but with far more money and far less “elephant walking”) as an exemplar of the possibilities in increasing media access also probably begs examination; a day before Jenkins’ missive, local broadcaster Seven had Melbourne ruckman Max Gawn mic’d up for the duration of his side’s spirited, streak-breaking win over Collingwood.
But the resultant audio yielded few insights beyond the foreseeable conclusion that while sprinting for hours around an oval as expansive as the MCG, there’s little we can expect from a seven-foot behemoth than the fact he’s going to grunt and groan like a stuck pig. It was hardly Richard Sherman stuff. When the best player afield could actually suck in enough air to form a few words, he sounded like Sloth Fratelli from The Goonies. Perhaps its the shorter bursts of activity and oodles of downtime that allows for the bon mots more common in the NFL.
And yet, in an even greater act of reaching than Gawn’s own ruckwork, the Seven team still waxed lyrical over the fascinating glimpse into the internal workings of a football match we’d gained when the big Dee asked one of his midfielders a positional question that amounted to “right or left?” Unlike Jenkins, we were left pondering whether it’s sometimes best not to know how the sausage is made.
The corridor of dependability
There’s no mugs in the Australian Football Hall of Fame, to be certain, but in the wash-up of this year’s deserved inclusions, Inside 50 couldn’t help but wonder again what kind of lobbying needs to be done on behalf of Garry Lyon and Nicky Winmar in order for them to be given the nod, and that’s without mentioning another Saints hero in Trevor Barker – one of the bravest and most loyal men the game has known but as yet unrewarded on the night. Food for thought in 2017? Plenty of others remain out of sight and out of mind too and with such an extensive backlog waiting, maybe a few more than five inclusions per year could be accommodated.
Quote of the week
Our game is on the cusp of changing forever and changing for the better.
– AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick upon the announcement of next year’s inaugural women’s competition.
Photograph of the week
In the lead-up to Wednesday’s announcement of the new women’s national league, one young footballer couldn’t wait to run out onto the MCG and show off her colours, and her moment of bright-eyed expectation was wonderfully captured by Getty’s Darrian Traynor.
Bits and bobs
With only the appropriate levels of disrespect to the other sides involved in this split round, Saturday night’s potential barn-burner between Geelong and the Western Bulldogs is the only game other than Friday’s that you’d bother crossing the road for. The Dogs will fancy themselves but haven’t beaten Geelong in eight years and will need to circumvent another video game ‘turbo mode’ performance from Patrick Dangerfield, who double-dacked North Melbourne last week and stole their lunch while he was at it.
Insipid against Fremantle, Brisbane face West Coast at the Gabba in a game that might not so much prompt questions about Justin Leppitsch losing his job as a thorough examination of what kind of temporary bout of insanity would prompt anybody else to take it on. The Dockers host Port Adelaide, a game that is certain to draw observations like “yep, that sure is a game of AFL football,” while GWS should easily account for Essendon on Sunday. Melbourne are highly unlikely to knock off Sydney at the SCG and in fact tend to lose to them with an almost polite sense of obligation, but stranger things have happened.
