For too long in the past, Demon fans became habitually sick and tired of watching the Hawks hand out thrashings to their side. But Melbourne’s empahtic 55-point win at the MCG on Saturday has truly put a fork in the Hawk and turned that history well and truly on its head. The Demons have now won nine of their last ten encounters with the other result, a draw.
And like a fork, it was the multi-pronged options that Melbourne had all across the ground. It certainly helped that Hawthorn was playing a game style emblematic of ten years ago, as they tried to play possession football by constantly chipping the ball backwards and forwards to one another.
Despite the Hawks amassing a whopping 52 uncontested marks in the first quarter, it was all for nothing as the Demons piled on five goals with the Hawks managing only one point. Mitchell’s men were playing more of a soccer match with their game of keepings off.
The result demonstrates how statistics are only a measure of what happens in a game, rather than an indicator of the effectiveness of those actions toward producing success.
Well, the game was as good as over come that first siren, and having punctured any hope the Hawks had to be competitive, they simply had to stop the bleeding. To that end, they put up to two extra players at the contest which resulted in an AFL version of a rugby match. So the scoreline only advanced by three goals between the two sides in the second stanza.
Tragically, for the Demons, Steven May was sent to hospital with an injury to his ribs/lung area and not long after Jake Lever did some sort of damage to his knee. Not many teams would be able to recover from the loss of both key defenders with half a game of football to play, but Melbourne is a different case in point.
So the fans had been treated to game of soccer, followed by rugby, but from there on in Melbourne played AFL, and piled on another eight goals in the second half, despite the loss of their full back and centre half back.
Fortunately, Marty Hore was substitute and he fitted in to admirably hold his spot in the backline as a replacement. Tom McDonald assumed the full back position, while Christian Salem moved into the backline to assist and Harry Petty swung back to fill the gap left by Lever. The defensive machine never missed a beat and allowed Hawthorn to kick only three goals in the second half.
Yet again the Hawks tried to target Clayton Oliver, but once again those tactics from ten years ago failed to cover the rest of the Demons mids.
Centre clearances were a phenomenal 14 to 5, as they simply left other Melbourne mids unattended at the bounce. Once again while the stats were heavily in favour of the Dees, it was the ease and damage that those free flowing possessions from the middle that put yet another fork in the Hawks game plan.
Up forward, Bayley Fritsch put another fork in the Sicily bubble, who despite 27 touches (of which 22 were uncontested), allowed Fritsch to kick five goals. Again, it is of little value keeping the stats people busy while your opponent is keeping the scorers even busier.
The Melbourne coaches played the game style to force the Hawks until they made mistakes. All game long it was just a case of rinse and repeat, as the Hawks simply could not penetrate the Demons all ground defence. And when they made the inevitable error, it was always costly since Melbourne move the ball so quickly and open up the field. The Hawks just kept looking sideways or trying to switch without any success whatsoever.
With the Hawks being forked, Melbourne now travels to Adelaide for their next two matches including a short turn around of only five days between Port Adelaide and Adelaide. That certainly won’t help with the injury concerns being experienced in the defence.
Having used the forks to damaging effect in this game, the brains trust might have to use the steak knives to carve up the opposition in the coming matches.
MELBOURNE 5.3.33 6.5.41 10.7.67 14.9.93
HAWTHORN 0.1.1 2.3.15 4.6.30 5.8.38
GOALS
MELBOURNE Fritsch 5 Pickett 3 Chandler 2 Billings Petracca van Rooyen Sparrow
HAWTHORN Breust Lewis McDonald Weddle Watson
BEST
MELBOURNE Petracca Fritsch Neal-Bullen Salem Gawn Pickett
HAWTHORN Sicily Weddle Amon Scrimshaw, Worpel
INJURIES
MELBOURNE Jake Lever (knee) Steven May (ribs)
HAWTHORN Nil
REPORTS
MELBOURNE Nil
HAWTHORN Nil
SUBSTITUTIONS
MELBOURNE Marty Hore replaced Steven May at half-time.
HAWTHORN Jack Gunston replaced Luke Breust in the third quarter.
UMPIRES Williamson Heffernan Wallace Adair
CROWD 43,960 at the MCG
