AFL football operations officials and legal counsel gathered in a meeting room at AFL headquarters wringing their hands.
“What do we do about Ken?” asks one.
“You can’t go doing aeroplane charades and yelling sledges at Ginni. It’s unseemly. There’s a time and a place – and on the ground as Luke Breust was to be chaired off for his 300th game was neither.”
Ken Hinkley and James Sicily exchanged words after the match.Credit: AFL Photos
The officials scratched their heads, trying to conjure up just the right number. “What feels right? We gave the Giants $20k for Jase McCartney chesting Tommy Papley. Bloody hell that was only last week, don’t these blokes learn?”
“Ken didn’t make contact with anyone, so maybe less? A reprimand?”
“Reprimand?” one splurted. “Right you, out. Go find us some of those custard pastries. No, it needs to be financial, these people only understand money.”
“Can we fine Sicily? I mean, he was yelling back ...”
“I like your thinking, but I’m not sure he actually did anything wrong. No, it’s got to be $20k for Ken too, we can’t have this sort of thing. We’ll call it ‘conduct unbecoming’. He’s incensed the Hawks and their fans.”
In another room across the building, the fixturing department arrive. They walk into the room and high five each other.
“Woohoo! Kennnny delivers!”
“Camperdown Ken, you beauty. Finally, a Port game people in Melbourne want to watch. Better put that one on nice and early next year. Imagine the crowd we’ll get!”
“Cripes, we got 98,000 to the Hawthorn-Bulldogs elimination final, and they don’t even hate each other. We’ll get an extra 20,000 for this. We haven’t had fans hate another coach since Sheeds! Can we put them on opening round?”
“Hmm. Not sure it’d fly in Sydney. See what I did there – fly?” (The executive sticks his arms out, mimicking Ken mimicking a toddler mimicking a plane.)
“OK, Gather Round maybe?”
“No, if we wanted to waste it we’d get Port to play Adelaide in Gather Round. It’s just that sort of talk we don’t need. We’ll fill Adelaide Oval with tourists against Port that week anyway.”
“Launceston? Bit of spice for a Tassie game?”
“I thought I made it clear that sort of talk was not helpful. We’ve given them a team, that should be enough.
“What about The ’G round one? We could work that up all summer.”
“Done.”
“We could give away cardboard cutouts of aeroplanes for the crowd ...”
“Only if they’re Virgin planes.
“We could get Virgin to pay for the cutouts.”
“What about a paper plane competition at half-time for the kiddies? Virgin can buy the paper.”
“Good idea. How will Toyota feel, though?”
“Hmm. We’ll get the kids to throw the paper planes from the back of HiLuxes?”
“Done. Now go and tell football to fine Hinkley, would you?”
The Sicily situation
James Sicily might have won the game when his kick hit the post with a minute to go. He had already helped change the game. Like the move of Will Ashcroft onto the ball for the Lions on Saturday night, Sicily’s move forward was influential in the shift in momentum for the Hawks.
Finally, Hawthorn had a target forward of the ball. Against Port the precocious Calsher Dear could not replicate his athletic heroics of the week before, while Mabior Chol had a second final as lean as his first. Neither could offer a target. Five of the Hawks’ first seven goals came from free kicks, which is not a sustainable method of attack.
Sicily forward created something. For his size, he is probably the best mark in the AFL. He stands only 188cm, a fact that bears repeating at every opportunity for it is ridiculous how routinely he out-marks far taller opposition. He reads the ball as well as anyone in the game and positions himself expertly.
James Sicily has proven himself a weapon at both ends of the field.Credit: AFL Photos
Of course there is a Peter to pay Paul consequence, as there was on Friday night when Hawthorn looked more vulnerable behind the ball without him there. It remained a risk worth taking given the situation.
The imminent arrival of free agent Josh Battle from St Kilda and the almost certain – and more important – trading in of Tom Barrass presents Hawthorn with a luxurious choice next year. The two key defenders enable Sicily to either make the forward move permanent, or at the very least make his swingman role a more regular feature once again. Sicily of course began forward then went back and forth before settling behind the ball.
Hawthorn will now have the list depth to choose how they best deploy their skipper.
There is a risk in this. As a permanent defender Sicily has been All-Australian once and is an annual contender. Do you risk turning an elite defender into a very good forward? Or would he now be far more damaging as a permanent forward, or even as a regular swingman?
Sure Hawthorn will have Mitch Lewis back from knee surgery next year to bolster their attack, but he is yet to play more than 15 games in a season and will be coming off long-term injury. Dear has to play every game next year. Chol has been a good pick-up but had a poor finals series – he has now kicked one goal and taken seven marks in his three career finals – and is not a long-term lock as a forward. Jack Gunston has signed on again for next year but, like Breust, he plays on knowing he is a subordinate role player now.
The arrivals of Battle and Barrass should already make Hawthorn better in a year when they will be running to stand still. In 2024 they played with a freedom partly borne of a lack of expectation; next year they will carry expectation to be finalists at worst. As a top-six side they will now have a fixture that is theoretically harder than when they were bottom six.
But carrying expectation is something the Hawks immediately embraced. As Jai Newcombe said after the game: “You don’t get this far in the season and be happy to settle for less next year.”
Where there’s a Will ...
Chris Fagan’s move of Will Ashcroft onto the ball helped swing the momentum for the Lions in one of the most thrilling finals witnessed since … last week’s mirror-image GWS loss.
Brisbane had looked slow and out-worked for almost the entirety of the night, yet conjured a way to win. Their momentum was irresistible once they turned the game. This was all despite so many of their good players being down for most of the contest. Cam Rayner had yet another disappointing final, Dayne Zorko ended up with 25 touches but not a normal level of impact, while Lachie Neale was subdued.
Will Ashcroft made a huge difference in the middle for the Lions.Credit: Getty Images
Against the Cats, who are now one of the quicker running teams, the extra pace and energy of Ashcroft around the ball would be worth considering from the first bounce.
Geelong does not often use a tagger but having seen the impact it can have on the Lions might look at sending Tom Atkins to Neale. Denying the Lions the run and delivery of Zorko was important. Perhaps Brad Close or Gryan Miers, both dangerous goal-kicking small forwards with pace who cannot be lightly ignored, could be put to Zorko to close him down and drag him from play.
The bigger query is for Brisbane. What do they do with Jeremy Cameron? Against GWS the Lions persisted with Jack Payne on Jesse Hogan while the Coleman medallist repeatedly beat him in the air, refusing to shift their star defender Harris Andrews onto him. They won the game so who is to say the decision was wrong.
Neither Andrews nor Payne is a natural fit for the hard-running Cameron. Perhaps Ryan Lester is an option for trailing the big Cat up the ground and Andrews stays behind to zone off in a hole and intercept mark. Payne is a fit for Shannon Neale, or Tom Hawkins, should the veteran make his unlikely return.
Can Swans be short-circuited again?
Small reminder because no doubt you won’t hear it this week: Port Adelaide have won their last eight games against the Swans.
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