Round 17
Hawthorn v Melbourne
1:15pm, Saturday 4th July 2026
University of Tasmania Stadium, Launceston
We were downing tasty prawn and lettuce rolls from Preston market. Feeling, as Larry David would put it, pretty, pretty, pretty good. When someone messaged me. The Dees had kicked the first two. In the blink of an eye, the Hawks, ‘we’ve got this’ party crashed.
In the first 15 minutes the Dees rammed home 4 goals to nuthin. In Launceston, at our fortress, where apparently, we have won the last 400 games.
Then Joshy Ward, a northern suburbs lad, kicked true for the mighty Hawks and shrunk the margin a bit. And I thought, okay the Hawks are settling in. I also thought, c’mon fury, do your thing and rain down on these Demon imposters.
More than an hour later the Hawks kicked their second goal.
Meanwhile, Pickett and Gawn and many other real live demons were taking care of business. They were going to bury us, without mercy. Like daemons!
Nowadays there ain’t much that really gets me huffing and puffing. When I do, it’s mostly a storm in a cliché cup.
But when a team (my team) that is third on the ladder, with a real shot at having a crack deep in September, gets turned inside out in the first half of the freakin game, and on a deck that apparently we own (because we have won the last 4000 times we’ve played the joint, remember) I think I have every right to wobble off my axis.
My mind was fraying like a thing that frays. I have no idea what things fray, gee, if you really want to know, go look it up yerself.
Two big, like real big losses were swirling around in my mind. A mind, I might add, which isn’t, even at its peak, top shelf real estate. Remember when the Cats gave the Dees a real smacking, down at Kardinia a decade or so ago. Was it 200 points? I can’t remember the final score but I do remember that it rained goals. I was there. I took my son. And no, I don’t know why he barracks for the Cats. But I do know that after witnessing his team give any team that kind of shellacking, he wasn’t ever gunna change teams – damn you gods, yeah, every damn one of youse.
The other game that came to mind was when the mighty Hawks stripped Port of their pride and dignity and the wobbly bits and pieces we call character.
And then I remembered how we ripped the Giants a new one a year after that. Oh, and there was the 2014 thrashing we handed the Saints.
Yeah, but friends and neighbours, these were not the happy thoughts of a contented man. Far from it. This was the hell I envisaged we were walking into. That’s right. What goes round comes round. And vice versa. Man, thinking dark thoughts sucks.
We were 77 points down at half time. It stretched out to over 90 points someway into the Third. Gunners not sighted. Our best, bested.
As the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men can go wrong. No shit Sherlock. Wrong, these plans may as well have been chomped up by Mitch’s dog. And to make things worse, worst case scenarios were gorging on my brain.
I had been to Perth the week before. Perth’s six-day weather forecast was three days of 22 degrees and sunshine then three days of the wildest, wettest, woolliest weather. That was how the Hawks played, except the other way around and the sun was off its game.
We did bounce back. People dismissed the comeback because it was in junk time – the Dees had already banked the points. On Kayo, Gerard Healy had a more philosophical take. He said, and I am not making this up: they plummeted down, now they are plummeting up.
To be fair, he did ask rhetorically, can you plummet up?
No Professor Healy, you cannot. You cannot actually plummet down either. The act of plummeting itself is … oh, never mind.
By game’s end my huffing and puffing had dissipated and I was more circumspect about the world. Chol did okay. Ginni had got going. Our Mids were more than middling. Gunner goaled and in his first game back from injury, that was enough for me. Barrass broke even. Mraz, what a find. What a game. Great way to start your AFL ledger. Along with Bailey MacDonald, it looks like we have the beginnings of two promising backmen. I’ll take that.
Still not sure if this was a blip (I think it was) or a fissure. Time will tell. And effort. And skill. And luck. And a team syncing not drowning.
Note: Melbourne played really well and look the goods and at times, they were magnificent. But this story ain’t about that.
HAWTHORN 1.2 1.3 5.5 14.6 (90)
MELBOURNE 7.5 13.8 17.11 19.11 (125)
GOALS
Hawthorn: Chol 5, Ward 2, Ginnivan 2, Macdonald, Lewis, Gunston, Day, Dalton
Melbourne: van Rooyen 5, Fritsch 5, Sharp 2, L.Pickett 2, Petty 2, Laurie, Langdon, Jefferson
BEST
Hawthorn: Ward, Chol, Mraz, Hardwick, Newcombe
Melbourne: van Rooyen, Gawn, Petty, Fritsch, Sparrow, Jiath
INJURIES
Hawthorn: Nil
Melbourne: Nil
Crowd: 9377
Read other round 17 match reports HERE
Read more from Trucker Slim HERE
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Up in the mornin’, out on the job
Work like the devil for my pay
But that lucky old sun has nothin’ to do
But roll around Heaven all day
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