Analysis: No Coleman, no worries, high flying Hawks leave Voss with forward line Blues
If anything was made clear on Thursday night, it was that you don’t need a fat check forward line to make an impact. The Hawks are running hot, but where to for Charlie and Harry?
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At either end of the MCG there were two forward lines carrying vastly different reputations and delivering vastly different results on Thursday.
The dominant and exciting effort from Hawks Jack Gunston, Mitch Lewis and Calsher Dear left Sam Mitchell driving home with a nice headache.
And whatever Panadol Michael Voss has been taking this season, it hasn’t been curing his bad headaches this year.
In his forward half, Charlie Curnow, Harry McKay and Tom De Koning couldn’t deliver anywhere near the same impact, despite the reputation.
That is two Coleman medallists on fat contracts and De Koning, who will be on a monster deal next year.
Between those three they took 11 marks, three contested, and kicked three goals.
The Hawks trio, who would earn less than half of the Blues crew produced almost double the output, bagged seven goals, 15 marks, five of which were contested.
The divergent results between the Hawks and Blues don’t just end with the individuals.
Carlton ended Thursday night’s 24 point loss, a game they in which they never actually felt a chance of winning, with two more inside-50s.
While Voss’ team tried hard in the contest and won the midfield stats, there was less flow in Carlton’s game than a stuffy summer bedroom when your fan breaks.
The Blues forwards couldn’t separate, the ball movement found little free ball when coming up the field, and there were almost no easy goals.
Hawks defender Jack Scrimshaw said he was pleased with the clamping efforts of his back six, as his side was able to springboard away from the tall Blues.
“We like to back ourselves in the air and we like to use our running profile to hurt them the other way as well,” he said.
“It was good to get on the end of a few kicks and keep them honest defensively.”
Hawthorn showed some glimpses of the tantalising Hokball open play of last year, and still were rusty on Thursday night, but at least created space in attack and moved the ball well enough to give their forwards a chance to thrive.
That meant Lewis got a one-on-one opportunity against Nick Haynes in the opening quarter to show his size, take a strong grab, kick his first goal since returning from a knee injury and celebrate accordingly.
Dear got his chance to leap over Sam Docherty before the quarter-time siren and reel in a leaping one-hander after half-time, showing off some freakish forward touch.
And Gunston is enjoying the warmest Indian summer imaginable, leading to beautiful passes inside-50, kicking easy goals from the goalsquare, and hitting his own crafty kicks to teammates inside-50.
The smooth ball movement wasn’t complete on Thursday, as the Hawks still missed some simple targets and just didn’t quite fire fully.
That has been a part of the game Mitchell has been working to fix all year.
“We were a bit scratchy with some ball movement stuff so we will look to tidy that up. Credit to Carlton with the way they defended us, they were pretty good,” Scrimshaw said.
“We aren’t playing our best but it is exciting to hit our straps.
“I think it was just a little bit of that connection or that last piece of our offence that let us down a bit, just forcing some things.”
In defence, one lingering issue that has hung over the Hawks this year has been the form of skipper James Sicily, who was back to his best on Thursday.
The long-sleeved leader tallied up 25 disposals and 11 marks, getting back to star who melded intercepting with incisive kicking and looking over the hip issue that had curtailed his form.
Scrimshaw said he knew the captain would return to form and he had got through the form and fitness woes well earlier in the year.
“He has been first class. You wouldn’t even know throughout the week if he was in a bad patch of form, as some others would say,” Scrimshaw said.
“We always had the faith that he would be able to bounce back, he is a great player and really important for us. I thought he was great last week and it was good to get into some good form going into the right time of the year.”
Similar to Sicily’s revival, the Blues had a winner in defence of their own, with Harry O’Farrell superb in gathering 13 marks and six intercept possessions in a breakout game in defence.
Carlton is confident it has found a long-termer in O’Farrell, a crucial positive development amid the lingering uncertainty about Jack Silvagni’s future at the club.
Mitchell’s warm and fuzzy headache comes with Mabior Chol, who at times has been Hawthorn’s spearhead this year, watching from the stands with a sore groin.
One of the key ingredients in Hokball, Chol now finds himself out of the team, and as Jack Riewoldt noted on Fox Footy, “possession is nine tenths of the law” in Hawthorn’s forwardline right now.
It would be hard to change the mix the Hawks rolled with on Thursday night.
Voss didn’t wait until three quarter-time to change his, jettisoning ruck Marc Pittonet to the back row of the bench and the sub vest to final return De Koning to the ruck role.
Voss said post-match he was trying out some different looks forward, and on Thursday the taller look clearly didn’t work.
Immediately De Koning had more impact in the ruck and showed signs of the player that was one of the most impactful in the entire league in the opening rounds of the year, when a $1.7m per year offer seemed fitting for his abilities.
De Koning is expected by all to leave for St Kilda and that big offer at the end of the year.
Curnow is not leaving and despite batting away the reports of his desire to play on the Gold Coast post-match, has been looking around for some time.
McKay is seemingly always in trade rumours and just hasn’t got a chance to find consistency this year as he fought through multiple injuries.
Carlton’s problems don’t start and end with those three players, but on Thursday they explained some of the issues.
A lack of ball movement, a lack of form, and a lack of spark in a game that was flatter than the Nullabor Plain.
A mirror image of each other in some respects on Thursday, Hawthorn’s premiership window is only opening, and Carlton is fighting to keep its window from slamming shut.
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