AFL Round 2 Hawthorn v Melbourne: All the analysis and fallout from the Demons’ 55-point win

Hawthorn were given a lesson by Melbourne in their 55-point loss, but there’s one particular area Sam Mitchell says needs urgent attention.

Ronny Lerner and Scott Gullan

6 min read

March 24, 2024 - 10:27AM

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Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell says his team needs to dramatically improve their centre clearance work against Geelong next round after making a “disastrous” start in that area this season.

Despite finishing in the bottom three last year, the Hawks were one of the strongest centre clearance teams in the AFL with a ranking of No.3.

However, after getting pumped in that department by nine against Essendon in Round 1, they replicated that deficit in their 55-point loss to Melbourne on Saturday evening at the MCG.

If they’re any hope of taking down the in-form Geelong on Easter Monday, it’s a statistic that needs urgent fixing and Mitchell forecast a potentially busy night at the selection table this week.

“That’s going to be a clear focus for us is being able to sort out the centre bounces,” Mitchell said post-match.

“To be minus 18 after two rounds is disastrous and last year we were really strong in that area.

Sam Mitchell laments Hawthorn’s poor centre clearance work. Picture: Getty Images

“That’s going to be a heavy focus for us. I imagine there’ll be some changes, whether that’s personnel or system or both, I’d suspect there’s going to be something different in the next time that we play.

“I think we conceded nine goals from clearance (against Melbourne and) five from centre bounce ... we couldn’t halve the contest. So once we did get at a 50-50 play, get a clearance in the first quarter, they dominated that area of the ground.

“Two weeks in a row we’ve given up enormous amount of field position through centre bounce and clearance work so that puts you behind the eight ball.”

But centre clearances were just one alarming aspect of their heavy defeat to the Demons.

The Hawks over-possessed the footy badly in the opening quarter with a whopping 53 marks for just one behind as Melbourne helped themselves to the first five goals of the match to all but end the contest at the first change.

Mitchell agreed his team were too conservative, lacked the necessary dare to win territory and described it as “not a sustainable way to play”.

“They blew us away early,” Mitchell said.

“We controlled the ball in the back half and then we had plenty of chances to go inside 50, we just didn’t take them.

“I think some of the coaching of that, we have to have an assessment. We need to look at the plan, look at why we couldn’t execute a part of it.

“Certainly the idea to take some more uncontested marks was obvious. Taking some more territory and actually looking for chances to penetrate the front half was where we fell down and fell down badly.

“We knew we needed to not cough up the ball in the back half so we decided to possess the ball a bit more, and 50 marks is a bit excessive in the first quarter.”

The Hawks leave the field after a loss. Picture: Getty Images

The midfield battle was very much like boys against men as Melbourne trio Jack Viney (seven), Petracca (seven) and Clayton Oliver (five) had 19 clearances between them while the entire Hawthorn side managed just 23.

The Demons comfortably won the clearances 35-23, contested possessions 128-116, tackles 73-50 and forward entries 55-42, and Mitchell intimated Melbourne was a team the developing Hawks aspired to emulate in the coming years.

“If you add (Max) Gawn to that (Oliver, Petracca and Viney), they’ve probably all played a minimum of 100 games together,” Mitchell said.

“The personnel that they’ve had and the consistency of performance that they have and they’ve backed those guys in when they were very young and they continue to play at a really high level for a long period of time.

“Once we look at teams like that ... they back in a young group, they build with them together and then they’re able to play a lot of footy together and we’re in that process now.”

But Mitchell didn’t want his team to use that as an excuse for them to get regularly thumped by opposition teams this season.

“Coming into this season, we wanted to put ourselves in a winnable position in far more games,” he said.

“This is a nine- or 10-goal loss and we don’t want this. We want, as a football club, to move past these big losses where we’re not able to compete with sides at that level.”

Meanwhile, Mitchell confirmed Luke Breust was subbed out in the second half for tactical reasons and had no injury concerns.

PLAYING DEAD? THE FAILED HAWKS TACTIC THAT GIFTED DEES 4 POINTS

Clayton Oliver knew it was coming but Hawthorn’s negative tactics weren’t expected to be an across-the-board scenario.

All week, the Melbourne coaching group would have told Oliver that Finn Maginness would be annoying him from the opening bounce and refusing to leave his side.

But what was soon apparent early doors at the MCG on Saturday was that being negative was clearly the Hawks theme for the day.

Maybe it was a genius Sam Mitchell rope-a-dope strategy. Play dead, show no signs of trying to win which will hopefully put your opponent to sleep and then suddenly flick a switch.

The first part of the plan worked to a degree. They certainly denied Melbourne the ball a lot by playing kick-to-kick in their defensive half with Hawthorn skipper James Sicily on pace for a world record for uncontested marks.

In fact, they did get their names in the record books with a total of 53 marks for the term – Melbourne had just 22 – an AFL record for a quarter.

The only minor issue here was every time this ridiculous tactic broke down, which it inevitably did, the Demons went forward and kicked goals.

Finn Maginness and the Hawks get in the face of Demons star Clayton Oliver. Picture: Darrian Traynor/Getty Images

Kysaiah Pickett and Bayley Fritsch thrive off fast-break football and they both kicked two goals in the opening stanza as the Demons kicked five goals to the Hawks grand total of one behind.

So with Plan A a clear failure, what was the Hawks next move? Ahhhhh, how about more of the same with a twist.

The uncontested mark count went down and with a bit more purpose about them the Hawks did outscore the Demons, kicking two goals to one in the second quarter.

What the match didn’t need to start the third quarter was for Melbourne to kick the opening two goals through the impressive Kade Chandler and Fritsch.

With the contest dead and buried, it then became an exercise in trying to find positives for the Hawks.

You certainly can’t take your eyes off Jack Ginnivan with the former Magpie seemingly always in the thick of something, whether that is creating space or mouthing off to the opposition.

He is more than pulling his weight at his new club and one of the few bright lights for the brown and gold came from his sidekick Nick ‘The Wizard’ Watson, who kicked his first AFL goal after a bad case of the yips saw him with six behinds before his first major.

Christian Petracca was the star for Melbourne. Picture: Michael Klein

After six behinds, Nick Watson kicked his first major at the top level. Picture: Michael Klein

Josh Weddle is a good player but we already knew that – and that’s about it.

Jack Gunston started off as a sub so you have to wonder where he’s at, while fellow veteran Luke Breust was the man who came off for him in the third quarter after a scoreless first half.

By the final term, even Mitchell had seen enough and released Maginness to at least let Oliver (23 possessions) enjoy the last 30 minutes of the game.

For the Demons, the story of the win was more about who wasn’t there at the final siren with Steven May already in hospital with broken ribs and Jake Lever wearing a tracksuit top on the bench with a sore knee.

In their places were Harrison Petty, who’d initially played forward in his return game, and Marty Hore, the former favourite who got delisted, went back and played VFL before getting another chance at the big time.

Things are clearly going to get a lot harder next Saturday night against Port Adelaide, a team who unlike Hawthorn likes to score and enjoys trying to do it.