Garry Lyon: How Hawks’ defence and Crows’ attack will prove each side’s biggest test before finals
Adelaide is the AFL’s closest thing to an unstoppable force in attack, and this week they come up against the unstoppable force of Hawthorn’s defence. Garry Lyon unpacks how it will unfold.
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The best clubs in the competition are working way ahead of the curve. They don't wait for a problem to arrive on their doorstep. They anticipate 12, 24 or 36 months ahead and make decisions accordingly.
Hawthorn is, and has been a good football club for a long time. There have been a few missteps along the way, but four premierships in the past 17 years, and a finals campaign last season has them very much back in this years conversation.
Nine into eight doesn’t go, of course, so September football is not to be taken for granted by any team, bar one or two, and the Hawks have got work to do still.
But the work they did in the off season when assessing their wants and needs comes into very sharp focus on Friday night when they take on the new premiership favourites, the Adelaide Crows.
Matthew Nicks’ team could not have been more impressive this year. They have demonstrated an obvious self awareness in terms of where they need to be to give themselves a genuine shot at this years title. They had an issue defending to the level premiership teams have previously been at earlier in the year. They made the adjustments to the point that they are a superb defensive unit today. Individually they are combative and competitive and can defend and intercept as any group in the game, and collectively they now rate as the No. 2 defensive team in the game.
Offensively, they’ve been right in the hitting zone from round one.
And this is where the planning of the Hawthorn brains trust is on display for all to see. They obviously arrived at a point where they knew they were ill equipped, defensively, to contend with the best forward set ups in the game. They won their first final against the Dogs last year with Sam Frost and Josh Weddle as the nominated key defenders, with skipper James Sicily in support.
The following week they just came up short against Port Adelaide with Jai Serong favoured over Frost. They weren’t torn apart by the key forwards of Port, but the vulnerabilities were there for all to see. Frosty is a much loved and admired player across the competition for his willingness to compete and his crazy unpredictability. Serong is a talented young man, but at 192 cm tall is not in any way suited to stand shoulder to shoulder with the emerging pack of power forwards that look set to dominate the football landscape for years to come.
And never would it have been more obvious than tonight, had the Hawks not anticipated their own weaknesses, but more impressively, been able to aggressively go to the market to fix them.
Frost and Serong up against Riley Thilthorpe, Darcy Fogarty and Taylor Walker? That’s got Hawthorn supporters around the country nervous every single time.
So, what do you do about it? You don’t wait until your bundled out of last years finals series to sit down and look at each other and say ‘now what?’
You do what Sam Mitchell had probably been doing for the 18 months prior. He was chipping away at the players he and his club identified as the answer to their problems. He wasn’t going to wait until the season was finished. He was travelling to Perth to get in front of Tom Barrass and those that were going to help him make his decision and he was shamelessly and aggressively selling the merits of a career with the Hawthorn football club.
And when he was back in Melbourne, he was hosting tours of the Hawks home base for Josh Battle and no doubt espousing the virtues of going to work every day at the best facility in football, the brand new John Kennedy centre at Dingley. And while Sam was working on the players, it’s said his wife Lyndall was a formidable ally as she sold the virtues of the ‘family’ club to their better halves.
I don’t know for certain, but if Barrass and Battle hadn’t already been measured up for their Hawthorn blazer by the time the final siren sounded on that finals defeat to Port Adelaide, I’d be very surprised. The Hawks had pulled off a magnificent heist. They added two key position defenders with a combined 273 games of experience to, in the space of a couple of weeks, turn one part of the ground from vulnerable to formidable.
And aren’t they happy they did? Implementing such a significant change to your key defensive posts does not come without its teething problems, and Barrass, particularly, took some time to fund his feet. But the signs in the back half of the year have been more than encouraging.
Their defensive profile looks more reliable than it did last year. They’re the third hardest team to score against this year, an improvement on last year when they were sixth. Opposition sides found the Hawks the sixth hardest team to score against from intercepts last year, and this year they are fourth. The big improvement has come in denying opposition from scoring once it goes inside their attacking 50. They were 12th last year and have tightened up considerably this year and are fifth for scores per inside 50 against.
They are also much harder to score against from clearance, going from 12th last year to fourth in 2025.
Barrass has always been an aggressive defender. He is prepared to back his judgment, particularly with the ball in the air, and his intercept defending has been elite. Collectively, Hawthorn have gone from ranking 11th in intercept marking to fourth this year.
Barrass has played a key role in winning the ball back in the air, having taken 52 intercept marks for the year, the fourth highest in the competition, including a season high six last week against the Blues.
But he also genuinely defends his opponents. He has kept Nate Caddy, Tom Lynch, Aaron Naughton and Riley Thilthorpe goalless this year, held Josh Treacy to one, Mitch Georgiades and Ben King to two, while Nick Larkey has the best return of four goals. That is impressive.
I’m sure the sales pitch to both Barrass and Battle included the prospect of playing alongside each other. While also alongside the likes of Sicily, Impey and Amon, they are forming an impregnable back six that understands intimately what each other is doing at any time of the game. This takes time, of course, but in recent weeks you can see this back group really come together. Trust comes through experience, and there is a selfless willingness to cover for one another that is more evident with each game they play.
Battle has settled into his role really smoothly. He is enjoying career high possession numbers and metres gained and his third best ever intercept possession numbers. He, too, has been miserly, with Charlie Curnow, Taylor Walker, Darcy Fogarty and Cam Zurhaar failing to kick a goal on him, Mitch Georgiades, Liam Ryan and Curnow (second time) getting just one and the red hot Jeremy Cameron kicked two. His game is in good shape.
But the biggest test to date arrives this week. The Hawks and Crows met in round 14 down in Tasmania, with the Hawks coming from behind in a low scoring affair in typically difficult Tasmanian winter conditions.
Unbelievably, it was the only time this year that Thilthorpe, Fogarty and Walker failed to score a single goal between them. The Hawks could only dare hope that happens again in front of their home crowd the Adelaide Oval.
In among the drama of the Demons last quarter capitulation and Nasiah’s heroics, the Crows victory over arch rival Port Adelaide got lost to some degree. It was one of the more impressive performances of the year in my eyes. The Power are a shadow of what they once were, but in the most oppressive, driving rain I’ve sen at the football for a long time, the Crows still managed to win by almost 100 points.
Every now and then you identify, in a side, an awareness of just how good they are.
It’s dawned on the Crows, and not in an arrogant way, but rather it's a testament to the progress throughout the year and the unwavering belief their coach has in them. I know coaches are generally famous for having faith in their charges, but despite finishing 18th, 15th, 14th, 10th and 16th, Nicks has never once wavered in his conviction.
That they were charging through the ankle deep water in the last quarter and tackling with the same intent and ferocity they were in the opening minutes, speaks of a club on a mission.
Of a club that appear to be sick and tired of being an irrelevant member of the competition, a derisive moniker worn at this time of year by all sides that are out of contention.
And leading the charge are three key forwards who have all, for varying reasons, had their doubters in recent years.
You could have picked Tex up for a ham sandwich three years ago. He’s now on the verge of 300 games and immortal status in Adelaide if he can help drive them too a premiership. The Fog looked, for a long time, as if he might just be caught in between being a star and just a good, solid footballer. He much closer to being a star than he has at any other time throughout his career.
And then there’s big Riley Thilthorpe.
We go a bit ‘gaga’ about Sam Darcy, Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera is as hot as any player has been in recent times, Nick Daicos is probably going to win the Brownlow Medal and Bailey Smith is a rock star, but the man with the best beard in football is every bit as big in Adelaide town. The harder the rain fell last Saturday night, the better he played. That’s not supposed to happen for a 202cm giant, but if you watched him pick up a ball and sublimely kick a left foot goal in the second quarter, all while Noah was building his ark, you’d understand that this is no ordinary footballer.
He is a pure weapon.
One of many that the Crows possess. Thankfully, the Hawks come prepared. Barrass v Thilthorpe, Battle v Fogarty and maybe Sicily to Walker.
It shapes magnificently. Adelaide Oval will be pumping.
Finally, a Friday night to savour.
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