By Greg Baum
Hawthorn president Andy Gowers looked at the team as it was engulfed in 10-deep jubilation in the changerooms on Friday night after their elimination final thumping of the Bulldogs and noted that Jack Ginnivan, Mabior Chol, Nick Watson, Massimo D’Ambrosio and Calsher Dear were all new to the club this year, and Jack Gunston was making a new beginning.
“It took a while for them to gel.” he said. “Now the understanding – the word they use is ‘connection’ – the connection amongst the side is very strong.”
Jack Ginnivan, Nick Watson and Connor Macdonald of the Hawks pose for a photo after their win over the Western Bulldogs.Credit: AFL Photos via Getty Images
As the backslaps rained down, Gowers – a premiership player in the Allan Jeans era and a stalwart supporter during Alastair Clarkson’s indomitable reign – made another point about the Hawks: they’re young. “We don’t have many kids who are children of players,” he said. “Our creche at the moment is one baby.”
They’re the family club; all they need now is families. This puts them in conspicuous contrast with, for instance, still reigning, but soon to be deposed premiers Collingwood.
It’s not that the Hawks are back, and so soon, jumping others in what is supposed to be a cycle. It’s that they’ve reinvented themselves, a much more difficult and finicky business, and so quickly. Coach Sam Mitchell made particular mention of the stiffening provided by ruckman Lloyd Meek and defender Sam Frost, two more refugees from other clubs.
As matters stand, if the Hawks prevail over a physically and morally battered Port Adelaide in a semi-final in Adelaide next Friday, they would have equalled the greatest single season rise by any team in the history of the game. Moreover, they will have done it from an 0-5 start to the season.
Mitchell bristled slightly at the mention of the winless beginning and would not admit to outright surprise at the transformation, saying they had played better football all along than their early ladder position suggests.
“Did we think we’re as good as we’ve become, as quickly as we have? Maybe that would have been a stretch at the time,” he said. “But we all knew that progress was coming. We just needed to click into gear. And we’re obviously running on a fair bit of momentum at the moment, which is good fun.”
Ah yes, fun. What on earth has Craig McRae and his happy-clappy team of evangelicals at Collingwood done to this once po-faced premiership pursuit industry?
“They are playing with joy and fun,” said Gowers. “I said this at a lunch earlier today: Do you have success after you have fun and enjoy yourself? Or does success come because you’re having fun? I think it’s the latter. I think you’re more likely to be successful when you enjoy yourself.”
This manifests most obviously at Hawthorn in their busy social media profile and their extroverted celebration of goals, typified on Friday night by Chol when he leapfrogged clean over Watson after the little man had kicked a goal, and by Ginnivan, who after kicking a fourth quarter goal mimed a drinking action, a retort to critics after he was seen in a Richmond pub on Thursday night.
Ginnivan said he was not drinking alcohol, and Mitchell said he had no problem with Ginnivan on that score, guessing that half the team probably was out to dinner on Thursday night. Ginnivan’s real retort was his game: as much as anyone, he played his assigned role.
Besides, what struck Mitchell most forcibly about the Hawks’ performance on Friday night was the way they handled not just the Bulldogs as they came at them early and late, but the entirety of the occasion.
“I thought we were quite mature,” said Mitchell. “More than 97,000 [an elimination final record], the biggest crowd I’ve ever coached [in front of] and most of them have ever played in front of. The players handled every aspect of the game really well.
“I wonder if it is the naivety of youth. Maybe they don’t know it is a big deal. They are enjoying their football and playing with a high amount of energy.”
In a perverse way, the unfolding of the season might have worked to the Hawks’ advantage on Friday night. “You know, we’ve been playing elimination finals for 10 weeks, really,” said Mitchell, “and we had a real one today, which is another step – maybe a slightly bigger step – in the right direction for us.”
Counterpart Luke Beveridge said his Bulldogs had been playing elimination finals for 10 years – five in that time, for two wins – and have not found them any easier. Though glum about his team’s lacklustre effort, Beveridge was gracious enough to pay due credit. “Ask yourself the question of how much of it is Hawthorn and how much is us,” he said. “I would say a bit of both.
“Credit to them. They looked slick across the ground, and put us under enormous pressure. We couldn’t cope with it as well as we needed to, and they were rightfully winners in the end. We were as flat as the proverbial hat, as you can imagine.”
Mitchell said it was a trap for a footy club to look back. He said the Clarkson teams he played in looked only forward, and the Jeans teams in which Gowers played a part also were concerned only with what more they might achieve, not the spoils they had already taken.
It’s a point well taken. Footy followers are sentimental, but players and coaches are not. Even at many-splendoured Hawthorn, the past is another country, conquered long ago. The Jeans and Clarkson teams were not exactly dour, but they did not have – or at least did not put on public display – the flair of this team, though Gowers notes: “We did have Dipper.”
Part of Hawthorn’s secret, on the field as off, was that they have moved with the times, and now even a little ahead of them. They spread the ground, and they spread the cheer, and it is infectious. Hawthorn were ushered onto the ground on Friday night by banner squad all wearing sequined gold jackets, and they left it still sporting a little sparkle of their own making.
One other thing: footy is forever said to be going to the dogs, yet two teams never regarded in the first tier in terms of their drawing power nearly filled the MCG and set yet another attendance record. Imagine if they ever get footy right …
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