Round 21 – Hawthorn v Collingwood: Flat (Floreat Pica Society)

 

by Richard Moody for the Floreat Pica Society

 

In the week leading up to the game, my Hawthorn loving mates were conspicuously quiet with little banter about the forthcoming game. And my darling feeling supporting wife, had asked the question, “why are you going to see Hawthorn? Arn’t they third last on the ladder?”. Well I was going regardless, as there was the job of the match report to undertake, and upon reflection I really should have not put my hand up, as in the past four years I’ve yet to write one for a game that we have won.

 

Well with a little spring in my step and the knowledge that we have signed the brothers Daicos for 6 years, off to the ground I trundled. Bumped into the FPS  selection committee on the way to game and discussed all nature of things before we went our separate ways at the ground.

 

Being a Hawthorn home game the the Hawks get a chance to showcase their players on the big screen, of which I recognised three, which just shows how deep into the rebuild they really are, after off loading Mitchell, Gunston and Jaeger at the end of last year.

 

After missing the boys run through the banner, due to a gaggle of Hawthorn supporters insisting on standing until the very last second. The game gets underway and the opening stanza is not overly positive for the boys in black and white, with some good penetration into our forward 50 with ‘eyes down ‘passes getting swept up by their spare man in defence, then transitioning the ball to their forward 50 without significant pressure. Of note is that there is some really good contest at the stoppages but we are not getting much reward with the majority of the clearances going against us.

 

At the 12 min mark of the term the Pies are down by three goals to zip and it’s not looking like we are going to kick our first anytime soon. Thankfully I love a good forward pressure tackle and Beau McCreery delivers, earning a well deserved free kick. But our kicking for goal is atrocious and has me thinking there must be a magnet in the ball, or are we just having an off day? And with no jumper clash to be seen we are still managing to deliver the ball to the Hawks sweeper  / spare in the back line on a regular basis. It’s not looking good at all with addition to the other magnet / shadow Maginness keeping Naicos to one kick and one handball in the quarter.

 

On a side note our recent contract signers of McCreery, Noble, and Cox all had shockers the week after putting pen to paper, and looking very much like brother Daicos are in for a similar game … Time to change the signing pen Craig Kelly, it’s got bad JuJu.

 

The second quarter gives us a bit of hope with a mini comeback with four goals in a row to DeGoey, McStay, Elliott and McCreery, and it was looking like the slumber was over and Pies were back in the land of the living. Thought we were still being towelled in the centre and at stoppages, putting the team continually on the back foot. The late bump from Murphy gives the Hawks an easy goal to finish off the scoring for the quarter.

 

Down by 2 goals at half time and hoping for a comeback

 

The third is all about the big bloke sandwich and the melee that followed, the late bump by Blanck was completely unnecessary, but got what I’d say the Hawks wanted, an injured Naicos. The follow up with brother Josh going in to bat for his younger brother after the McStay goal was what we wanted to see, but the high jumper punch on Naicos from Mitchell was just dirty.

 

Highlight of the quarter was the McCreery run down the southern stand wing and unselfishly delivering the ball to Elliott in space. Just loving watching this man grow as a footballer, and his leg speed is phenomenal. Others who have put in a quality game thus far are IQ (aka Mensa), Dependlebury, and the Crispy Chicken.

 

The final quarter we got what had deserved all day in the first half of the quarter, letting the Hawthorn runners have space and turning over the ball on a regular occurrence. Of note is the final stat of centre clearances for the match going down 18-3, we were always going to be on the back foot having to transition out of the back six, but amazingly (and I don’t know how) we won the clearances 35 to 34 there must have been something wrong with the statistician, as that wasn’t how I saw it all day.

 

Overall we were flat and as Fly mentioned in the presser our best players just didn’t perform, and by that I’d put DeGoey, Mitchell, Lipinski, Maynard, Adams, Moore in this category. All had shockers to some degree. There have been some in the media saying that we were out coached, I vehemently disagree and it came down to the players giving Hawthorn too much space in transition, and from then on it was always going to be catch-up, or rely on the back 6 to rebound.

 

Another side note: I heard it mentioned that in 1990 and 2010 the last team we lost to each of those seasons was Hawthorn, with a 10 goal flogging in round 20 at Waverley in 1990 and a 3 point loss in round 22 in 2010 at the G. Let’s just hope this a good omen.

 

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HAWTHORN          4.2    6.4    12.7    16.9 (105)
COLLINGWOOD    0.3    4.5     8.5     11.7 (73)

 

GOALS
Hawthorn: Ryan 3, Breust 3, Morrison 2, Moore 2, Lewis 2, Weddle, Reeves, Koschitzke, Newcombe
Collingwood: Elliott 3, McStay 2, De Goey 2, McCreery, N.Daicos, Pendlebury, Hill

 

BEST
Hawthorn
: Sicily, Day, Maginness, Newcombe, Moore, Hardwick, Nash
Collingwood: Crisp, Pendlebury, Elliott

 

INJURIES
Hawthorn
: None
Collingwood: Murphy (foot), N. Daicos (leg), Mitchell (quad)

 

SUBSTITUTES
Hawthorn
: Cam Mackenzie (replaced Seamus Mitchell in the third quarter)
Collingwood: Oleg Markov (replaced Tom Mitchell in the third quarter)

 

Crowd: 62,134 at the MCG

 

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Comments

  1. Rick Kane says

    Appreciate the write up Moody and an appropriate surname for the spectacle you had to endure. From our side of the fence, it was the banquet we have hungered for all season and then some. Sic at the top of his game, Day running through the centre causing havoc to your midflounders, and an ageing Punky up forward along with our young ‘un weaving a bit of that old time magic. Finn’s work on Naicos was as good as a Guiness straight from the Dublin Guiness factory tap! Cheers

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