Ball Up

It is a truth universally acknowledged among football pundits that Hawthorn will win this year's AFL premiership. This proposition is based on data such as the average age of our playing list compared to other recent premiership winning teams, the relative mix of youth and experience, the return from injury of key players, the presence of star players Buddy Franklin and Cyril Rioli, the continued maturation of 2011's debutants and the hurt felt from last year's devastating and narrow Preliminary final loss.

All reasonable tea-leaf signs of course, but many Hawk fans are certain of premiership glory on altogether more sturdy empirical grounds: it's an Olympic/leap year, just like our last flag in 2008, the New York Giants won the Superbowl, just as they did in 08, Barack Obama is up for election, where he'll no doubt emulate his success of 08, Buddy is single again, and well, hopefully he'll kick bags of goals. Really, so long as someone else can knock Geelong out, we're half a chance.

Faced with this impending triumph, I thought I'd set up a blog to track our progress through the season and review each game as I experience it. This may be from the ground, watching tv, listening on radio, getting score updates online or just crank calls from opposition fans.

You could argue there is already an oversupply of uncalled for commentary and unsolicited speculation about football. And you'd be right. But while there are more than enough outlets from which to get stats about kicks, corkies, handballs and hard-ball gets, this blog aims to give expression to the season from the fans' perspective, to give voice to the exhileration and exasperation, the anxiety and excitement that your average Hawk enthusiast will go through during the season. Plus a bit of Buddy love of course.

And while I can't promise a happy ending, we can at least try to ride the bumps with a grin. Though that may depend on how you're seated.

So the first official match of the year has been played between Sydney and GWS, but the real season gets underway next Friday night and I'll be on hand, or at least in the bar depending how things are going....