Of Dogs and Hawks (and one famous Kanga)

It’s easy to spot us at the moment, us Hawthorn supporters. We’re the ones floating two metres above the ground, gazing airily in the direction of the footy gods, thanking them for a season like no other and feeling a general uplift about life, spring sunshine and exceeded sporting expectations. I saw a fifty-something Hawk in the park this afternoon, eating his roll and wearing his sleeveless brown and gold jumper. I love the fact that it’s Tuesday, and he got up this morning and thought, Better don the jumper. Like I’m in grade 3. Big game Friday.

It is a big game Friday. The last time we played the Western Bulldogs in a final was 2016, and it was a handing of the baton sort of occasion. We’d had our dominant era, the threepeat of 2013 ‘14 and ‘15, and we’d finished equal top with seventeen wins and five losses, but there was a sense that we weren’t quite the same team, that the Dogs could grab the crown.

That’s what happened in that semi final. We were outclassed by a young, ballistic team’s manic handball, and run off our aging legs. The Dogs went on to pinch the flag, and in the charting of the collapse of empires, it’s that night I think of as the end of ours. I wrote this video script for the AFL in the preseason of the next year (voiced by William McInnes). It’s my gift to you, Dogs fans. Enjoy it because this time it isn’t your turn. No, it’s our turn again, because … (prepare to be outraged) … there is a whole generation of young Hawthorn fans, my own children included, who have grown up not even being able to remember seeing a threepeat. 😀

This week, it feels like we’re the young, explosive team, we’re the ones with nothing to lose. I’ve been to most MCG games this year, and for much of the winning streak have been bewildered by this team’s ability to cut through the middle and find targets. It’s like they drop sudden handbrake turns on what look like slow traditional switches, surprising opposition team defences and triggering hyperspace on the pinball machine. Suddenly a piercing kick has lit up the corridor, usually delivered by D’Ambrosio, Hardwick, Sicily, Impey or Scrimshaw, and everything and everybody in the vicinity explodes forwards. If oppositions stack the centre corridor, Mitchell has the Hawks running fast and free down open wings. On big grounds like the MCG, it seems hard to defend.

We might struggle a bit with the Dogs. Frost has been immense this year. He and Lloyd Meek have produced seasons that not even the most optimistic Hawks fans could have imagined. But the Western Bulldogs have tall forwards who have troubled everyone during their own winning streak. Can we open next year’s presents early, Mum? It’d be lovely to have Tom Barass back there. And our Bont is Will Day. And their Bont is actually Bont who is actually playing. Their Bont will retire one of the top ten players of the 21st century. Possibly top 5. I’m a bit worried.

But fuck it, I’ll tip us. Actually fuck it, I’ll tip us, and wear my sleeveless Hawks jumper in the park tomorrow for when I’m eating my roll. The Hawks players’ age profile says we’re too young to be peaking, but maybe this is actually our chance to win the whole thing? In 2008, it was a coach’s flag — we were playing a style that the rest of the competition hadn’t really worked out how to defend. Maybe it’s the same this year? Maybe we’ve got to win it before the rest of the teams work us out?

So we better win on Friday.

Go Hawks. What fun this has been.

Last Thursday I was part of the panel line up at the

Hawks Insiders

Live event at the Glenferrie Hotel. it was the perfect night out for Hawkers hungering for some extra gold and brown discussion, and panellists like Daniel Harford, Rodney Eade, Emma Race, Ed Sill and others stepped up to fill the breach. I was on at the very end. If you want to watch it, the password for the below link is HIPanel2.

I couldn’t believe how many people were there. It felt like hundreds. I love listening to Rodney Eade in these relaxed scenarios, and Rocket picking his Hawthorn Mount Rushmore was just funny. When he got off stage, I asked him about a story he told me in an interview at his house for the Jeans biography I’m writing, one about his first coach, the famously uncompromising John Kennedy Snr and a dog.

T: Was that story true, Rocket?

RE: Yeah absolutely it’s true. Although I wasn’t there. Did I say I was there?

T: I kinda got the impression you were there.

RE: Nah it was before my time. I think it’s a David Parkin story. But it’s probably true. Some of David’s are. A lot of blokes know it.

T: Oh. I better check with Parko.

Ah the perils of writing non fiction. Why does everything have to be so goddamn true all the time!

Here is the story.

The transcript is below: