Sam Mitchellsays Hawks ‘exorcised a few demons’ in famous Adelaide win
After last year’s Adelaide Oval heartbreak, Sam Mitchell knew the Hawks needed to produce something special – but they may have started something more than that. Look out, Geelong.
An ecstatic Sam Mitchell felt Hawthorn’s barnstorming win over Adelaide exorcised some demons the Hawks had at Adelaide Oval, and declared his players won’t be satisfied simply to have made it to a preliminary final.
The Hawks had lost six of their past seven games at their bogey venue, including last year’s season-ending semi-final heartbreaker to Port Adelaide, but set up a preliminary final clash against Geelong with an emphatic 34-point win against the minor premiers on Friday night.
PLAYER RATINGS: WHO STARRED, WHO FLOPPED ON BIG STAGE
“There was sort of a sense that we needed to win here in a big game because we’ve had some pain at this venue over the years,” Mitchell said.
“We actually feel like we’ve played some good footy here, we’ve just struggled to win.
“So, we’ve exorcised a few demons … but getting to the prelim is not the aim, we have big things we’re hoping for in front of us.
“We get Geelong next, so it’s a pretty exciting time to be a Hawks fan, coach or player.
“I think everyone goes into work on Monday pretty optimistic and hopeful of what we can achieve, but the prelim weekend is not the aim.
“I’m really proud of what it has taken to get here, but … getting here is a stepping stone.
“I sat at this exact table last year heartbroken by the loss and the missed opportunity of what could’ve been.
“I think everyone had a level of pain and understanding that getting that far is really difficult.
“It’s enormously hard work and you’ve got to have a huge amount of respect for the teams that just back it up year after year.
“Geelong is one of those, and Adelaide finished on top and get to this weekend and couldn’t go a bit further, but they didn’t have the experience that our players have had now.”
Evergreen veteran Jack Gunston was enormous with five goals, but he had plenty of willing helpers further afield where Jai Newcombe, Josh Ward, and James Worpel dominated the Crows’ misfiring midfield.
Gunston’s match-winning haul took his tally to 70 goals in his second season since returning from a year at Brisbane.
“I’d love to say that I had this plan and we knew he’d be this, but I’d be completely lying,” Mitchell said.
“We hoped that he would have some on-field impact, but we were really clear with him that the biggest influence we wanted him to have was we wanted him to support this young group.
“Our midfield is quite an eclectic group and you put all the names up without Gunners and you don’t know what you’re going to get sometimes two years ago.
“Now, the level of consistency from all those other players comes from the leadership of him and Luke Breust, who’s not performing on the field at the moment but he’s still having a massive influence.
“What (Gunston) has done on the field has always been considered as a bonus and it’s certainly beyond what I thought he’d be capable of and I think what he thought he’d be capable of.
“But full credit to him and the medical team for getting him as fit and as good as he’s been.”
Mitchell made headlines for his meeting with Essendon skipper Zach Merrett in the lead-up to the game, but the coach was unapologetic.
“I’m not going to get into any details, but … I couldn’t have prepared any better for this game is what I would say,” he said.
“My job is to win as many games as I possibly can as the coach of this club and to improve this club in any way I see fit so I will continue to do that.”
Ginni, Hawks get last laugh as Crows crash out in horrific fashion
– Jason Phelan
Adelaide’s season of improvement and positivity ended in a diabolical disaster on Friday night, Jack Gunston booting five goals as hungry Hawthorn dumped the desperately disappointing Crows out of the finals with a 34-point win to storm into a preliminary final.
As meek and disjointed Adelaide was, the Hawks were heroic and fluent, Sam Mitchell’s men consigning the Crows to a season-ending defeat that made them the first minor premiers to bow out of the finals with back-to-back losses since 1983.
The Hawks led by 30 points at three-quarter time and the fightback that most of the 52,005 fans at Adelaide Oval came to see never materialised.
Matthew Nicks’ men finished the home-and-away season a game clear on top of the ladder with 18 wins, but the coach has some work to do after the daring, attacking footy that produced that enviable record melted under the heat of finals footy.
When it mattered most, Adelaide’s attack and midfield misfired badly, Riley Thilthorpe the only danger with three goals, while Gunston loomed large inside 50 and Jai Newcombe and Josh Ward ran amok through the middle.
“This vaunted Adelaide forward line has been dominated by the defence of Hawthorn,” Melbourne great Garry Lyon said on Fox Footy.
FIRESTARTER
With Adelaide desperate for a good start to calm frayed nerves after the disappointing qualifying final loss to Collingwood, the switched-on Hawks had three goals on the board with some fans still finding their seats.
Newcombe was the firestarter in the middle with early centre clearances and searching kicks putting Adelaide’s defence under early pressure.
Gunston snapped the visitors’ first goal after just 28 seconds, Nick Watson followed suit a minute later and when Karl Amon landed a long bomb with just over four minutes on the clock, the Hawthorn celebrations were greeted by stunned silence from the stands.
Thilthorpe provided some respite with his side’s opening goal 10 minutes in the first of three in a row that levelled up the scores, but Newcombe continued to be a huge problem.
The Hawks’ star had a game-high 11 touches and a stunning five of his side’s seven first-quarter centre clearances to Adelaide’s none.
WIZARD MAGIC
Nick ‘The Wizard’ Watson set up his side’s eight-point quarter-time lead with a goal few others are capable of.
Running flat out toward the rapidly approaching boundary line, Watson gathered and snapped on his right foot while in the process of being tackled.
From an angle and a distance he had no right to expect a positive outcome, The Wizard conjured a spellbinding goal that he celebrated with the disbelieving home fans.
Where Watson was pulling off party tricks, the Crows couldn’t buy a goal in the second quarter and struggled to even create many gettable shots.
Taylor Walker missed a couple of tough shots, while Darcy Fogarty and Ben Keays missed the lot with their attempts.
The home side trailed by 12 points late in the quarter, but had at least slowed Hawthorn’s scoring until Mark Keane had a moment.
The Irishman’s ambitious kick coming out of defence was broken up and allowed Dylan Moore in for a drought-breaking goal that extended the Hawks’ lead to 19 points at half-time.
EARLY CROW
It’s sometimes easy to forget that Gunston, a Hawthorn champion synonymous with the brown-and-gold, spent the early days of his glittering career in Adelaide colours.
And he ratcheted up the pressure on his old side after the main break.
The ageless veteran booted back-to-back goals to start the second half to take his tally to three then twisted the knife late in the term with his fourth to help the margin out to 30 points at three-quarter time.
The Crows desperately needed the first goal of the final term to mount an unlikely comeback, but it was that man Gunston who once again stymied the home side with his fifth goal just a minute in.
Scoreboard
CROWS 3.2 3.6 7.7 10.7 (67)
HAWKS 4.4 6.7 11.13 14.17 (101)
PHELAN’S BEST CROWS: Worrell, Laird, Milera, Thilthorpe, Peatling. HAWKS: Gunston, Newcombe, Ward, Hardwick, Weddle, Butler, Moore, Sicily.
GOALS CROWS: Thilthorpe 3, Rachele 2, Pedlar, Peatling, Fogarty, Pedlar, Soligo. HAWKS: Gunston 5, Watson 2, Butler 2, Weddle, Moore, Macdonald, Amon, Newcombe.
INJURIES CROWS: Hinge (hand). HAWKS: Nil.
UMPIRES Foot, Rosebury, Stevic, DeBoy
52,005 at ADELAIDE OVAL
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Originally published as Sam Mitchellsays Hawks ‘exorcised a few demons’ in famous Adelaide win
Sad detail says it all amid Crows’ nightmare
