By Peter Hanlon
GEELONG 4.1 7.3 10.7 14.8 (92) HAWTHORN 3.4 8.6 13.7 13.12 (90)
GOALS - Geelong: Podsiadly 5, Johnson 3, Hawkins 3, Bartel 2, Smedts. Hawthorn: Lewis 3, Whitecross 2, Rioli 2, Franklin 2, Hale, Roughead, Suckling, Mitchell.
BEST - Geelong: Hawkins, Selwood, Podsiadly, Kelly, Christensen, Bartel, T Hunt. Hawthorn: Mitchell, Whitecross, Burgoyne, Lewis, Sewell, Guerra, Rioli.
INJURIES - Geelong: Smedts (shoulder), Selwood (head knock), Johnson (corked thigh). Hawthorn: McCauley (concussion), Gibson (head knock).
UMPIRES - McBurney, McInerney, Margetts.
CROWD - 69,231 at the MCG.
TOM Hawkins didn't kick a goal in the last quarter, but neither did Hawthorn. Hawkins took five marks, Hawthorn missed five chances. Hawkins' smile lit up the gloom, all in brown and gold wore dark visages. At the death of another classic, this was the tale of two Hawks.
Tough Cat: Joel Corey bursts through Hawk Chance Bateman’s tackle as Joel Selwood moves in to assist at the MCG yesterday.Credit: Sebastian Costanzo
Defeat will have hurt another couple of Hawks, Ryan Schoenmakers and Josh Gibson, as much as anyone; try as they might, Hawkins and James Podsiadly made them look small.
''He just looked too big and strong there at times,'' Chris Scott said of Hawkins, pointing out that this more formed player is not just growing in confidence but strength, too. Alastair Clarkson's assessment was fittingly frank.
''He was the best player on the ground today.''
With the Cats three goals down at the last change and more than that at times in the third quarter, Hawthorn let it slip again.
The hurt was obvious, the explanation less so. Clarkson could recite his team's key wins - inside 50s, clearances, tackles, contested possession - yet arrived at a depressingly familiar conclusion: his men weren't hard enough for long enough and Geelong assuredly was.
''When the game's really there to be won, guys like [Joel] Selwood, [Jimmy] Bartel, [Paul] Chapman just will their side to victory,'' he said. That the Cats won all five centre clearances in the last quarter didn't escape him.
He could reel off the misses - the running shot that dribbled across the face of goal and amounted to nothing (by Lance Franklin, his second failed attempt from the ''Hooker flank''); the goal-mouth soccer chance (which Michael Osborne chose to pick up, and was tackled by Andrew Mackie); the set shot from 20 metres (missed by Luke Breust); the ''beautiful front and square'' at the start of the term (by Jarryd Roughead, which he just missed to the right).
Pushed on the elephant in the room - that, against Geelong, the Hawks have lost the nerve to finish the kill - Clarkson pondered of Roughead's miss.
''Is that the pressure of the moment? I don't think he's even got time to think about it.''
Brad Sewell wondered, too. He blanched at the idea that uncertainty comes over the Hawks in these games, but was sickeningly sure of one thing. ''When the game's on the line, the momentum's going their way.''
As he so often does, Bartel got the ball rolling, marking under pressure, stepping back in the driving rain and sinking the goal from beyond 50 a minute into the last term.
''They trusted me to go back and do the right thing, lucky I came through with it,'' Bartel said of his teammates surety that he would do what no Hawk could.
''That's what Jimmy does,'' said Hawkins, in awe. ''He loves kicking big goals at big times in games.''
Scott owned up to some first-half coaching mistakes and drew great pleasure from the fact that eight of yesterday's Cats had 30 games or less on their CVs. Yes, Bartel was ''fantastic in the end'', and Selwood he rated the toughest footballer he's seen.
But his big plusses were the efforts of Cam Guthrie, Billie Smedts, Steven Motlop and, in particular, Taylor Hunt in shutting down Sam Mitchell.
''We could easily have gone back to Bartel or [James] Kelly or someone else, but it's even more pleasing that Taylor Hunt was the one who did it,'' Scott said of Mitchell slowing from 21 first-half touches to 31 for the day.
When push came to definitive shove, Cyril Rioli couldn't sustain the huge third quarter lift he gave the Hawks, Brendan Whitecross's creative best was blighted by errors of judgment and Mitchell simply couldn't find the football. Geelong did, and on the end of it it found Hawkins and Podsiadly, who kicked three last-quarter goals.
''Now, four or five years into the system, he looks like a really dominant key forward,'' Scott noted of Hawkins. The man himself would have none of the assertion that he is becoming a brute, saying only that he and Podsiadly are there to contest, and if they do that, ''eventually they're going to stick''.
Clarkson observed a tweak in Geelong's approach, designed to capitalise on Hawkins' growing stature. Scott was happy to admit as much. ''He's very conscious of playing how we want him to play, and at the moment the instruction is, 'When we kick the ball inside 50, you get on the end of it.' He's following that pretty well.''