Hawthorn holds off dogged Fremantle to win AFL premiership by 15 points
HAWTHORN claims its 11th premiership with a deliciously ugly victory against Fremantle in a triumph for coach Alastair Clarkson.
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SOME Grand Finals take your breath away with sustained brilliance. Others break your heart with dramatic, awe-inspiring comebacks from the clouds. But to bastardise an expression, Hawthorn won their 11th premiership with a victory that was deliciously ugly.
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Eleven goals won the day, the star duo of Lance Franklin and Sam Mitchell failed to fire, and the epics of recent seasons were replaced by a tense but scrappy contest.
Yet for Hawthorn and a fan base that has spent 12 months dreading a repeat of last September's fade-out, it was utterly beautiful.
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In many ways it was a victory that encapsulated everything Alastair Clarkson has built this past decade.
The warrior spirit of defender Luke Hodge, bending but not breaking in defence as he just refused to let Fremantle storm the barricades.
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The recruiting masterstokes in bookends Jack Gunston (four goals) and Norm Smith Medallist Brian Lake, one turning the contest on its head early and the other saving the game with total aerial dominance.
And, above all, the extraordinary tactical brilliance of Clarkson as he trumped rival coach Ross Lyon.
It could be argued Fremantle had the best five midfielders on the field as David Mundy and Nathan Fyfe led the charge, and yet still found a way to lose.
Through Clarkson's methods the Hawks divided the Dockers, and then they conquered them.
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On a windswept day punctuated by bursts of rain, Clarkson's game-plan stood up, his charges manouvering a way through and around Fremantle's diabolical zone.
With the masterful Lake and defensive cohorts Josh Gibson leading the charge, they cut Fremantle to ribbons around the ground.
Lake was a defensive monster and the best story of the Grand Final after his departure from the Bulldogs, also clearly the game's best performer.
Then while everyone focused on lethal duo Franklin and Roughead, silent assassin Gunston stood tall to replicate his four-goal heroics of the preliminary final.
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All with just a dozen touches from Sam Mitchell, 13 from Brad Sewell, and just four goals in total from Roughead, Rioli, and Franklin.
Fremantle thrives on chaos, forcing opponents into panic, and critical errors. In short, Lyon wants to watch the world burn from the coaches box. But when the stakes were highest, the man who invented Clarko's Cluster then totally overhauled his game plan drew the sweetest vindication of all.
Instead, it was Fremantle that was forced into the kind of errors that will haunt Fyfe (three missed shots), Zac Clarke (0.3), Ryan Crowley (0.2) and Hayden Ballantyne (0.2) all summer.
And while we laud Lyon as the King of Tactics, he will lie awake at night wondering how Lake was not held accountable through the second half.
When he was not allowed to roam free he allowed Gibson to take Pavlich and peeled off Chris Mayne to dominate the aerial sorties.
In so many ways, this is the premiership that makes everything right at Hawthorn.
It means Franklin can depart for northern riches with two premierships and a performance full of bone-jarring tackles and real intensity if not typical brilliance.
It allows Hawthorn to exorcise the demons of 2012 and consider a dynasty ahead.
And it entrenches Clarkson firmly as a future Hall of Fame coach, a brilliant innovator, man manager and leader of rare ability.
Twice Jeff Kennett tried to remove him in the years after the 2008 flag, once temporarily mid-year amid growing losses and once as the ex-president after Round 1 this year. But this year the season's best side is also its premier, after 20 home-and-away wins and yesterday's heroics. This was the game as it would have unfolded in Clarkson's dreams.
How else to explain Lake's dominance other than to say he was as clear-cut a Norm Smith Medallist as there has been in recent years, no matter how the votes fell.
His stats go some way to explaining his dominance - 22 touches, seven intercept marks, three contested marks - and with not a single brain fade in sight.
His contested marking has him built for September.
There were other heroes for Hawthorn. Isaac Smith, determined to run and carry with all his might and then banging through a 60m set shot early in the last to all but seal this game.
Bradley Hill, constantly darting around the forward line with his slick skills and precise disposal with a goal and two score assists.
Hawthorn built a match-winning lead through Gunston's brilliance and Fremantle's howling errors in front of goal.
But the Fremantle surge was always going to come. From 24 points up seven minutes into the second quarter, the Dockers came within three points.
They annihilated Clarkson's midfield with five straight centre clearances.
This time Hawthorn had reservoirs of composure, and a big former Bulldog who elevated the 2013 Grand Final to something approaching great.
HAWTHORN 2.3 5.5 8.8 11.11 (77)
FREMANTLE 0.3 1.6 6.10 8.14 (62)
BEST
Hawthorn: Lake, Gunston, Hodge, Birchall, Gibson, Lewis, Hill, Roughead, Smith, Rioli.
Fremantle: Mundy, Fyfe, Crowley, Barlow, Hill, Johnson, Pavlich, Mzungu.
GOALS
Hawthorn: J Gunston 4 J Roughead 2 B Hill C Rioli I Smith L Breust L Franklin.
Fremantle: M Pavlich 3 M Walters 2 C Mayne D Pearce T Mzungu.
Umpires: Simon Meredith, Mathew Nicholls, Brett Rosebury.
Official Crowd: 100,007 at MCG.
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