Round 2 - Geelong v Hawthorn

MCG Monday 9 April 2012

Groundhog Day

When I was a teenager, the Valhalla Cinema in Richmond showed cult movie The Blues Brothers every Friday night at 11.30pm. If you happened to be in Church Street around that time you’d see the moviegoers milling out the front of the cinema wearing their Blues Brothers uniform of black suit, white shirt, skinny tie and felt trilby. This wasn’t a momentary fad for a month or two; it lasted for years. It was only that the cinema shut down that it stopped at all. And it wasn’t that the audience for this movie was so vast or varied that it required repeated screenings to deal with surging demand, or that the cinematic concepts were so complex and multi-dimensional that repeat screenings were required to uncover new layers of subtext and meaning. It was the same people turning up every week to watch the plot unfold in exactly the same way, to witness the same characters say and do exactly the same things at the same juncture, to sing the same songs and feel the same emotion they felt at every previous viewing.

Likewise in the 1993 movie, Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays a TV weather presenter who finds himself reliving the same day over and over again. So it is with Hawthorn and Geelong fans who turn up to the MCG twice a year (in their considerable tens of thousands it should be noted) to relive the same match, to witness the same teams follow more or less the same script with only slight variation each time. It’s tight, fortunes ebb and flow, Hawthorn holds a slight edge late in the third and early in the last quarter, only to miss a few opportunities, and be overrun by a persistent Geelong outfit with Jimmy Bartel making a significant contribution, and ultimately losing by 1-6 points.  When the final siren rang yesterday (incidentally with Michael Osborne snapping a goal all too late) I felt exactly like Bill Murray’s character felt every morning when the digital clock flipped over from 5.59 to 6.00 to mark the dawn of yet another Groundhog Day.

When basketball began to grow in popularity I was not alone in noting that you may as well start each game with both teams level on 80 points and five minutes remaining, because pretty much every game came down to that. You could do the same sort of thing with Hawthorn and Geelong; start Hawthorn on 85 and Geelong on 65 and say, “right, there’s five minutes left.” You’d still end up with the same result – Geelong by 2 points.  If they know their job, you have to assume the marketing department at Geelong is considering putting together a box set of these final quarters.

The objective viewer (which I hasten to point out is not a thinly veiled autobiographical guise I'm adopting) might point out that it was a great game with both teams going in hard and showing a mix of aggression and sublime skill in difficult conditions. This objective viewer might highlight Stevie Johnson’s round the corner goals in the first quarter, Roughy’s goal with his first kick back, Sam Mitchell’s midfield supremacy and ball getting, Tom Hawkins’ big marks, Jordan Lewis’ hard work and finishing, Joel Selwood’s courage, Cyril Rioli’s brilliance, Jimmy Bartels’ ball use, Buddy’s athleticism, and conclude that it was yet another Hawks/Cats classic worthy of a better timeslot (more on this later).

Of course they’d be right, this objective viewer, but I ask, is there anyone more irritating than an objective observer of the game highlighting that your calls for “Ball!” are misguided, that Buddy’s frees are a bit fortunate, that “Gee, that Bartel’s good isn’t he?” and worse, “Yep, the Hawkers blew that one…they really should have won it”? I almost prefer the crazy old Cat fan who as he headed for the exit turned to no one in particular, and the Members pavilion in general, to bellow in angry tones more suited to a domestic dispute, “Go you Catters!”

As we trudged back on the path from the G to Flinders Street alongside the Yarra, my son looked up towards the Eureka Tower and asked me how they build skyscrapers so that they sway in the wind. Now I’m not an engineer and know absolutely nothing about the sort of engineering principles involved in this or any other type of construction, including Lego, or even if there are engineering principles involved, so there was no way I was going to be able to provide a convincing answer. Even if I had the faintest grasp though, I’d have been unable to respond; my mind was wrestling with bigger questions, stranger conundrums. I was seeking answers to entirely different, and may I say, altogether more pressing questions: why did Buddy kick it along the ground when shooting for goal? Twice! Why did Roughy do the same? And why didn’t Michael Osborne kick it off the ground from the goal square instead of trying to pick it up?  

Of course I’m touched that my son thinks I might have known the answer, and pleased that he was able to demonstrate a questing interest in the world around us at a time when I was lost in dark imaginings about a football match. It does him credit.

Our inability to beat Geelong has commentators calling it the ‘Hawthorn hoodoo’ or ‘Kennett’s curse’ (see previous post), but I feel it’s moved beyond that and is now actually a pathological condition.  After the 2008 Grand Final Paul Chapman is reputed to have vowed that they’d never let Hawthorn beat them again, and certainly he’s been as good as his word, but I’m not sure it’s up to him any longer…it’s the Hawks that won’t let themselves beat Geelong.

Despite the obvious disappointment all Hawks fans feel, it really was a great game, as have been all games between Hawthorn and Geelong in recent years. Perhaps it behoves the AFL to realise this and schedule it properly – unless they think Easter Monday at 3.10 is a prime fixture – quite possibly they do. The AFL still operates under some delusion that only Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon and Richmond draw big crowds and these four teams feature on all the big days. Have they compared Hawthorn’s membership figures with those of other clubs? Of the Victorian teams, only Collingwood has more, and we’ve even edged them out a few times. Have they realised Geelong is the best team over the past five years and people like to watch them play? I note that the Hawthorn v Geelong match drew a bigger crowd than Collingwood v Richmond on the Saturday night. Just as the 2008 Grand Final is the only match to draw over 100,000 in many years.

Meanwhile, Richmond and Carlton kick off every season in someone’s idea of a blockbuster – Richmond, who has appeared in the finals fewer times in the last 30 years than Fitzroy – a team that hasn’t been in the competition since 1996! Collingwood and Melbourne has the Queen’s birthday holiday – gee, doesn’t the football public salivate at that prospect every year. And ANZAC Day is apparently reserved for Collingwood and Essendon, who at least draw a crowd, though given Essendon’s recent form; the matches don’t exactly evoke the heroic battles the day supposedly commemorates.  

The next Hawthorn v Geelong game is at least on a Friday night, and while Hawk fans might well be excused for not wanting to turn up again to watch the same hackneyed plot play out, I’ll be there. We’ll beat them one day…surely, and I want to make sure I’m there when it happens.

Final scores: Geelong 14 8 92 d Hawthorn 13 12 90

Buddy goal count: 2 - total 7