Saturday 6 July, MCG
#notagain #groundhogday11 #evenafuckingbritcanwinwimbledonwhilewestillcantbeatgeelong
My God, it’s come to this – a fucking British player has won Wimbledon and the Hawks still can’t beat Geelong. The fact that he’s actually Scottish is of very little consolation. At this rate the Socceroos will win the World Cup before we can beat the Cats.
I wonder how Robbo from the Herald-Sun would see it. The great scribe who wrote of Jobe Watson: “He is not a drug cheat, but he could be found guilty of drug cheating” might furrow his brow in philosophical contemplation, unsheathe his quill and inscribe on his parchment with great flourish something along the lines of, “Hawthorn can beat Geelong, but they’ll go down in history as not having beaten them.”
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| Bill Murray in Groundhog Day - as synonymous now with Hawks v Cats as Mitchell or Bartel - photo miditeticket.com |
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| Andy Murray - like Bill Murray, now part of Hawks-Cats folklore - photo: mirror.co.uk |
Mathematically possible
It’s Round 15, that time of year when teams sitting two or even three games outside the eight, like Carlton and Adelaide, start to talk in terms of it being mathematically possible for them to make the finals. At Hawthorn we think that way about Geelong; it's mathematically possible to beat them, we just can't beat them. We've examined it from every perspective and see that we can beat them in just about every way; theoretically, geographically, historically, economically, scientifically, ethically, romantically…just not actually.
But it is mathematically possible. In 2011 we finished third; in 2012 we finished second, so you can see the numerical sequence taking shape here: in 2013 we’ll finish first. To do this we must beat Geelong at some point, so in this sense at least, it’s mathematically possible.
Historically possible
As we trudged from the G to Flinders Street after the match, my son asked if we’d ever been to a match and seen us defeat Geelong.
“Of course!” I scoffed, then had to try and think if in fact we had indeed revelled in such an occasion (he hadn’t been able to join me at the 08 Grand Final). “Once upon a time…” and I launched into the tale about:
Round 22 2006 – neither team had any chance to make the finals, Geelong having blown their chance the previous week, and the Hawks rolled them by 61 points, with Buddy kicking a stunning goal in one of his early outings for us.
This got me thinking about other great Hawthorn triumphs over Geelong...
Round 4 2007 – just before Geelong’s famed run of wins in 2007 that resulted in a drought-breaking premiership, we knocked them off by 4 points at Kardinia Park – they've never invited us back.
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| Harford - kicked the winner in 99 |
Round 6 1999 – undermanned and out of form, the Hawks again defeat the more fancied Cats at Kardinia Park when Daniel Harford snaps the winning goal.
Second-semi final 1991 – The Hawks dominate the first quarter but kick 3.11 to 2.1. Geelong takes over in the second half with Gary Ablett Snr starring, until Darren Jarman slots the winner from the boundary line, the ball bouncing into my arms after going through. Tragically, Morrissey (the English singer that is, not no. 35 for the Hawks) cancels his show for later that night at Festival Hall.
Round 6 1989 – The Hawks trail by 49 points at half-time, but inspired by Brereton, Ayres, Buckenara, Platten and Dunstall, storm home to win by 8 points in one of the greatest games of all time. The only game that comes close for the year is the Grand Final between the same teams that Hawthorn won by 6 points.
Round 22 1987 – The final round of the season. Geelong needs to win to make the finals and they lead all day, until the final minute when Dunstall takes two marks, kicks two goals and the Hawks prevail by 3 points to knock them out of the finals.
Round 21 1986 – The Hawks lead by 3 points at half time in an even contest, then kick 25 goals to 3 in the second half (12 in the third quarter and 13 in the fourth) to win by win by 135 points with Dunstall kicking 9.
Round 12 1985 – The notorious Matthews/Bruns match – Mark Jackson takes it in turns to beat up the Hawthorn backline, then Matthews hits Bruns and is the first VFL player charged by the police for an on field action. Hawks by 29 points!
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| 'Bomber' Hendrie - kicked the winner in 78 |
Oh, and there was also the 1989 and 2008 Grand Finals as well!
So it is at least historically possible for us to beat Geelong and even if we don’t achieve that again in my lifetime, perhaps one of my sons or one of their sons will live long enough to see us beat them.
Same old same old
This match was over fairly early, with the Cats taking the early advantage and kicking away to a good lead. The good thing about this is that we don’t have to sit there grinding our teeth waiting to be overrun. And although we held them for two quarters, we couldn’t actually score ourselves – goals that is.
Two defeats ago I posited that our inability to beat Geelong was a pathological condition, that it was actually Hawthorn who defeated themselves, and not necessarily the result of anything Geelong was doing. An inventory of our misses from set shots on Saturday backs up this hypothesis: Hale, Roughead, Hodge, Franklin, Breust. Now I love Breeuuust, but has he ever kicked a set shot goal against Geelong?
The third quarter was particularly mistake-ridden, with both sides missing targets, fumbling and shanking kicks. The teams kicked just 1.10 between them. There may well have been enormous pressure out there and perhaps the conditions were difficult – though it was difficult to tell from my comfy position in the Hugh Trumble Bar – but you couldn’t help thinking that if these were the two best sides, then how bad were the remaining 16? Cyril’s return after several weeks off was really the only highlight of the quarter.
Despite being well out of it all night (4.11 at 3/4 time!) we mounted our usual late flurry and slotted five goals in nine minutes – the fourth courtesy of an interchange free kick to Hale – to get within a few points. There are reports the interchange free kick was actually a mistake, but I don’t think so. It may not have been correct, but I suspect the umpires paid it as part of some larger, perverse agenda of wanting to see us come agonisingly close yet again.
The main talking point of the final quarter was when Joel Corey knocked himself out. I assume he’ll be cited for unduly rough play for his tackle on Mitchell. Geelong fans at the ground seemed to find Mitchell at fault, even though he was the one taken down from behind and pulled backwards. But of course if Geelong fans were able to discern between right and wrong, they wouldn’t be Geelong fans in the first place. I’m not ruling out that Corey staged the whole thing to stop the game. After all, we had the ball and the momentum at that point…and he was fine in the rooms after the match, singing the team song, joining in the warm down, enjoying a glass of red wine, lighting up a big Cuban.
Sweet submission
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| Rihanna, like Hawthorn, likes to be dominated. Is that our clash strip she's wearing? - photo: collapseboard.com |
Human sexuality is a mysterious phenomenon, unique and diverse; some men like Asian chicks in Hawthorn gear, while others like Scandinavian chicks in Hawthorn gear – who can fathom such binaries? Who can really explain their own preferences, let alone someone else’s? One man’s predilection is another man’s peccadillo as they say; some crave a caress while others take their pleasure through pain.
And just as some people like to crawl around the floor wearing an adult nappy with a studded leather bridle in their mouth, Hawthorn gets off by taking it roughly from Geelong and narrowly losing a match we should win.
In BDSM (bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, sadism and masochism) lore, there are three roles, the master or mistress (top), the submissive or sub (bottom) and the switch, someone who likes to swing between the roles of dominance and subservience – just like Luke Hodge really.
Hawthorn takes the submissive or bottom role in these BDSM sessions – submitting to Mistress Geelong and taking our orders from her. She exerts her feline wiles and extends her sharp claws to demonstrate her expertise in the dark erotic arts of punishment, discipline and humiliation. Just how we like it. Being under their control and experiencing pleasure through the discomfort, pain and suffering inflicted on us.
Anyone familiar with the type of BDSM practices enacted in any dungeon worthy of the name will recognise much of what took place between Hawthorn and Geelong on Saturday night. Buddy was engaging in wrestling most of the night, I think Joel Corey was trying to tie up Mitchell in some sort of human bondage act (he just didn’t utter his ‘safe’ word in time), our forward line were enjoying being ‘smothered’ and who knows what was going on in some of those packs – spanking, trampling, queening?
Scan the menu of services available at The Correction Centre and you’ll see that guests have a choice of not only golden showers, but also brown showers. Now it doesn’t take a particularly perverse imagination or diverse dalliance to understand what this means – and we’ve been taking the football equivalent for five years now. The only possible explanation I can come up with is that we must love it, can’t get enough of it in fact, otherwise why do we keep doing it? It’s about time we ‘switched’.
Final scores: Geelong 11 16 82 d Hawthorn 10 12 72
What we learned: The torrent of Twitter abuse levelled at the winner of the Wimbledon women’s title, Marion Bartoli, for being arguably less attractive than her opponent, Sabine Lisicki, or “not a looker” in the words of BBC commentator John Inverdale, tells us, that sports fans are shallow and fixated on some absurd notion of a ‘beautiful ideal’ and that sports fans on Twitter are even worse than sports people on Twitter #whatisitwithyoupeople? On the other hand, it is perhaps recognition of what constitutes the beautiful ideal that explains Hawthorn’s strong membership and big crowds.
What we already knew: Hawthorn and Geelong is surely now the premier fixture in the AFL season, a point voted on by the football public this weekend, with 85,197 people turning up to watch, compared to the measly 78,224 who turned up to watch the previous night's clash between 'traditional rivals' Carlton and Collingwood.
Sam Mitchell is a superstar and was great on Saturday night. Our best chance of winning big games comes when he has the ball. If GWS knew anything about football, they'd be chasing him instead of Buddy.
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