By Jake Niall
In time, we will likely learn if Hawthorn’s first-half capitulation to a pumped-up Port Adelaide was an anomaly, just one of those nights in which the one team gets rolling and the other rolls over.
If this was out of character for Hawthorn – based on their consistency over the past 12 months – Port Adelaide’s frenzied opening hour, when they put the Hawks to the sword with a dozen goals to three, was on-brand.
James Sicily leads a dejected-looking Hawthorn from the field at Adelaide Oval.Credit: AFL Photos
Port, obliterated by Collingwood in round one at the MCG, have the capacity to turn it on, or turn it up.
We saw both the stupendous and the shaky Port within two hours in the heavily hyped final game of Gather Round.
The Hawks charged back from a 71-point deficit to close to within 22 points with eight minutes remaining – enough for the confident Hokballers to get up, unless Port replied.
Which they did. It took a Sam Powell-Pepper snap to end what would have been possibly the most astonishing reversal of momentum/comeback since... the 1970 grand final (it would have officially the biggest comeback in VFL/AFL history, eclipsing Essendon’s victory from 69 behind North in 2001). Port then added a “double goal” to Willie Rioli (he was handed a second goal by a push from Changkuoth Jiath in the goal square).
Sam Powell-Pepper and Travis Boak celebrate during Port’s electrifying finale to Gather Round.Credit: AFL Photos
Many of us expected a barnstorming opening from Ken Hinkley’s men, who had been out-bustled in round three by an Essendon team that simply wanted to win more.
One would assume that the fact the Power were meeting Hawthorn, whom they’d pipped in that now-notorious semi-final featuring the Hinkley v Ginnivan/Sicily confrontation, did not hurt their mindset.
Senior players, too, would have had Hinkley’s back, given the calls for him to expedite the handover to Josh Carr.
Ken Hinkley’s Port came out with a real intensity.Credit: Getty Images
Port’s first hour was their finest since last season – comparable to their effort against Sydney here late last home and away season, when Port booted a dozen goals to two.
Hawthorn were sufficiently embarrassed by that first hour that their skipper Sicily – never one to pull verbal punches – remarked to Channel Seven at the break that: “We need to pull our heads out of our arses and get to work.”
They did get to work, but they were at least half an hour late.
The Hawks extracted not only their heads from their backsides, as Sicily suggested, they began to extract the football from contests. Missing their premier midfielder Will Day with a major foot injury, it was their 2024 best and fairest Jai Newcombe who provided the initial impetus, along with ruckman Lloyd Meek, and wily veteran forward Jack Gunston, who finished with six goals.
Sicily – sent forward in what is a now-standard move in Sam Mitchell’s playbook – provided the other danger in attack, booting a couple of goals and creating more.
But the bird had flown, and there would be no Ginnivan aeroplane imitations, or strutting celebrations.
Nick Watson wasn’t at his best.Credit: AFL Photos
The diminutive star of the opening burst was not Hawthorn’s wizard Nick Watson. Rather, it was smokin’ Joe Richards, the small forward Port prised out of Collingwood with a longer-term contract and the promise of a regular game. Richards booted two clever goals and set up another.
For the formative first hour, the Hawks’ ball movement was more ad hoc than Hokball.
Port’s blitzkrieg was powered, so to speak, by domination in every facet of the game, and no player encapsulated the 12-goal first half more than their skipper Connor Rozee, whom Hinkley had cleverly deployed at half-back, rather than putting him in the centre square with fellow musketeers Zak Butters and Jason Horne-Francis.
At half-time, Rozee had gained a staggering 515 metres, and had a dozen highly damaging kicks. Unmolested – the Hawks seemed to forget they had opponents in the first 45 minutes – Rozee was able to charge down the field and boot two goals.
Horne-Francis and Butters, who are among the game’s elite mids, combined for more than 60 disposals over the whole game, and unlike some teammates, they remained productive for much of the second half.
The Hawks barely touched the ball in the first 20 minutes, and were smashed in clearances. Defensively, they were either lacking intent, or uncertain, in that match-defining first half hour, when the revved-up Port piled on six goals to one.
It cannot be said they will have gained confidence from that second-half charge. Port are the team that needed belief.
Rather, as per Sicily’s half-time comments, the Hawks might have gained a necessary touch of humility.
On this night, they met a team determined to make a statement – in defence of their coach, to their fans and to themselves.
In eight days, they’ll meet a team made of sterner stuff, with whom the Hawks have a far deeper, storied rivalry: Geelong.
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