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Hawthorn, we (may) have a problem

2nd February, 2016
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A proven premiership star, Luke Hodge makes his way into the backline. (Photo by Justine Walker/AFL Media)
Expert
2nd February, 2016
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The Hawks seem to have cracked the AFL’s secret code to permanent success, so what follows should be taken with a note of caution. Hawthorn’s list management situation is precarious, and while a ‘fourpeat’ may be on, it might be the last shot the Hawks have at the flag for some time.

It seems strange to be talking about a team’s 2017 prospects before the 2016 season gets underway, but that’s sort of where we’re at with this organisation known as the Hawthorn Hawks.

The only way you can beat them is to send the Terminator back in time and coerce the 2010 Hawthorn board into sacking coach Alastair Clarkson.

It’s either that – which is beyond everybody’s football department budget except Collingwood’s – or clubs on the cusp of contention can plan for when the Hawks might not be as dominant as they are now.

That time could be closer than we realise.

Hawthorn enter the 2016 season as favourites for the premiership. Just think about that for a second: a team that has just reeled off three straight runs at the flag is, in the minds of the bookmakers, the most likely chance to win it in this year, which would make it a fourth straight victory in the last game of the year.

That, sports fans, is amazing. It doesn’t mean it’s surprising though.

Hawthorn’s 2016 list looks similar to its 2015 list. They’ll be a little lighter on the veterans front following the retirements of Brian Lake and David Hale, and down a middle-age player or two, but for all intents and purposes Hawthorn’s full-strength playing 22 will be similar to its full-strength playing 22 for much of 2015.

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That’s great for Hawthorn’s chance at the 2016 premiership. But after that? Well, it gets a little murky.

An unflattering comparator
Hawthorn’s 2015 premiership side – the 22 that played in the game – was the most experienced team to ever set foot on a professional football field in a grand final. There was a total of 3670 games of football wearing brown and gold on October 3 last year, which shaded the 2003 Brisbane Lions side by 216 games. The 2015 Hawthorn premiership side had played an average of 166.9 games, compared to 157 in the 2003 Brisbane side.

Every player bar three (Taylor Duryea, Brad Hill and Ryan Schoenmakers) had played 100 games or more, while eight had played more than 200. By contrast, five of Brisbane’s 2003 team had cracked the century in games played, and seven had played more than 200 (in addition to Jason Akermanis and Chris Johnson, who were both inside of half of a season of making the milestone). The experience curve for these two teams is interesting insofar as where it overlaps.

Graphic

Do you know what else these two teams have in common? They were both ‘threepeat’ premiers the year in question. Brisbane won it all in 2001, 2002 and 2003; Hawthorn have been champions in 2013, 2014 and 2015. The Lions made it to the big show in 2004, but were toppled by a plucky young Port Adelaide Power side, who were almost 1000 games their junior.

The Lions have had one winning season in the 11 years that followed their grand final defeat.

That’s not to say this is about to happen to Hawthorn. There are at least half a dozen non-football reasons why the Hawks aren’t on track for the same kind of post-dynasty collapse that those north of the border experienced. But the list management parallels are stark, and a little too similar to ignore.

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Those above are eerily similar, but there’s one likeness that should be of greatest concern for Hawthorn fans – and perhaps be met with joy by everyone else.

Heading into the 2004 season, Brisbane had 3671 games of experience on their list. Of those games, 3136 (85 per cent) were built into the careers of the 21 players who played in the 2003 premiership that didn’t retire after the victory, leaving 535 games spread over the remaining 20 players on their list.

Heading into the 2016 season, Hawthorn have 3379 games of experience on their list. 3080 (92 per cent) of those games are built into the careers of the 19 players who played in the 2015 premiership that didn’t leave the team after the victory, leaving 299 games spread over the remaining 22 players on their list.

That 92 per cent is an ugly number for Hawthorn and its prospects heading towards the next decade. Other premiership sides have had concentrated experience in their finals-winning players, but none to the same extent as Hawthorn this year.

Below is a table showing the gulf between premiership and non-premiership players in the year immediately following a premiership for Brisbane, West Coast, Sydney and Hawthorn’s most recent flags.

(This data is difficult to scrape, so in lieu of a full sample of the past 15 years, I randomly picked two other teams to compare to Brisbane and Hawthorn)

Games per premiership player Games per non-premiership player Ratio
Hawthorn 2015 162.1 13.6 8%
Brisbane 2003 149.3 26.8 18%
Sydney 2012 125.4 31.4 25%
West Coast 2006 113.7 17.9 16%
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Hawthorn’s average non-premiership player has eight per cent of the experience of their average premiership player. The next largest gulf was between West Coast’s 2006 premiership team (16 per cent), while Brisbane’s 2003 side (18 per cent) and Sydney’s 2012 team (25 per cent) also had much smaller experience deficiencies than the Hawks.

Well, then. This may not be a problem for Hawthorn in 2016, because substantively the same team will go to battle as the one that won it all in 2015. But come the start of the 2020 season, Hawthorn’s side can be expected to look dramatically different, and significantly less experienced as a result.

Is it all downhill for the Hawks from 2017?

Hawthorn’s middle class
It is, and it isn’t. Those headline numbers don’t paint a flattering picture for the Hawks, particularly given the likes of Luke Hodge, Sam Mitchell, Shaun Burgoyne, Grant Birchall, Jordan Lewis and Josh Gibson would be expected to play 25 games in any run to the flag.

Jarryd Roughead will also add to his games tally, but not to the extent he would have otherwise done so due to a posterior cruciate ligament injury in an unnamed knee. Roughead will miss between four and five months, which would place his season in significant jeopardy. His absence will be felt, but for the reasons we’ll explore in a little bit more depth below, we’re not going to notice any difference at the Hawks.

He is one of the players I was referring to as being unlikely to be around once the decade turns over. Hodge, Mitchell and Burgoyne will certainly be gone, while Gibson would be unlikely to make it given his age. Jordan Lewis seems to be made of putty and pure granite, and will be the same age as Burgoyne is this year in 2020, so would likely be around. Grant Birchall certainly could be around, too. Roughead would be a line-ball decision, and I’d be leaning retirement by 2020 at this stage.

A big chunk of Hawthorn’s premiership IP sits in the games that these seven players have played. Over time it will head for the exit.

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That will place pressure on Hawthorn’s rising middle class to pick up the slack left by this group of prospective hall of famers. The middle part of Hawthorn’s list is, both unsurprisingly and frustratingly, one of the healthiest in the competition. Want proof? Here are the players aged between 24 and 28 (clearly AFL standard players by virtue of passing the six-year mark, but not old enough to be considered genuine veterans), and who have played less than 200 games (sorted by games played).

James Frawley
Cyril Rioli
Liam Shiels
Ben McEvoy
Ben Stratton
Luke Breust
Paul Puopolo
Isaac Smith
Jack Gunston
Ryan Schoenmakers
Brendan Whitecross
Taylor Duryea
Jonathon Ceglar
Jack Fitzpatrick

Just stop it. It’s not the murder’s row at the very top of the age and experience curve, but as far as middle-class talent goes, that is as good as it gets in the AFL. Compare that to a list like Carlton, and the reality that both of these clubs are facing becomes apparent.

This group, plus some no doubt astute free-agent additions over the next few years, will be Hawthorn’s core in the years ahead. In that group are a full spine, an above-average midfield, and a world-beating forward line without Roughead. There is still some years of development ahead – Taylor Durea isn’t going to be Luke Hodge in 2016, or 2017, or 2018 for that matter – but the core is in place.

And herein lies the short-term dilemma for Hawthorn. This group are ready to go, but those at the top have earned the right to play as long and as often as they like. Hawthorn’s middle class won’t necessarily get the experience in their future roles that could be expected in a place like, say, West Coast, where the middle class is the only class.

Pulling their weight
The tension comes to life if we have a look at Hawthorn’s period of outright desolation in 2015, where they laid waste to the competition for nine weeks between Round 9 and Round 17. Hawthorn lost to Sydney by four points in Round 8, which saw the Hawks fall to a 4-4 record, but with a percentage of 145.8 per cent. The next eight games resulted in eight wins, with a ludicrous percentage of 199.1 per cent.

Who were the ballers getting the job done in those victories?

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Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge and Jordan Lewis were the top three users of the ball in that nine-week stretch, as they were in the other 14 games during the home-and-away season. In the period of dominance, Liam Shiels moved up to fourth on the disposal average table (from sixth in the rest of the season), but then in fifth place was Birchall. Four of the top five ball getters were at the top of Hawthorn’s age curve, in both times of plenty and times of slightly less plenty.

A lot of this can be put down to the roles individuals are playing, but as above therein lies the problem. Hawthorn’s best players still sit at the top, precariously positioned between glory today and retirement tomorrow, and that deprives those who sit below them genuine opportunities that other rising sides are offering their middle class.

Depth challenges
That rising core is very good, perhaps even great. After this year, it could already have 38 premiership medallions, which is a frightening number for a group that has no 200-game players.

But that comes with a cost, and that cost is what was described earlier on – an abject lack of depth beyond the players who have been part of premiership sides for the past two or three years.

Hawthorn has 10 players taken in the national draft between 2011 and 2014 on its list, and these players have suited up a combined 126 games – and more than half of those (75) are owing to wingman Brad Hill. Amongst this group there is potential: Hill is obviously an AFL-standard player, having played a critical role in all three of Hawthorn’s most recent premierships, while Billy Hartung looks cut from the Lewis cloth, but with better leg speed.

There is still plenty of uncertainty though, and this is the part of the list where things may become more challenging for the Hawks as the cascade effect of its veteran retirements washes through its list.

But they have won 13 premierships for a reason
Let’s not get too caught up in the medium-term minutiae, because we have a season starting in less than two months. Hawthorn should be very good this year. They are the ultimate scheme team. While Luke Hodge is a ridiculously good footballer, his attributes are put to their best use by virtue of the way his team plays. When the Hawks get going, Clarkson has his team running like a raging river in both directions, disposing of the ball with clinical precision and always to advantage.

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We all get caught up in schemes being important for a team’s defensive prowess, but it is equally important to have 18 players in sync with ball in hand. Hawthorn’s players, be they the 300-game Burgoyne or the 30-game Hartung, know where to run. If they have the ball, they know where to put it.

Their pedigree cannot be disputed now, and so they become the logical premiership favourites until they aren’t anymore. Heavy lies the crown, but don’t you reckon that’s just how Hawthorn like it?

The draw is much tougher on paper this season, with the Hawks unlikely to get the hindsight-is-twenty-twenty dream run of Carlton, Essendon, Geelong, Sydney and Port Adelaide in 2015. The veterans are a year older, and the one traditional key forward that the team plays – even if he spends time through the middle of the ground as a change up – in Jarryd Roughead will be missing for a large part of the year. It’s fortune-cookie wisdom, but when you’re the leader you have 17 other teams chasing you hard, and the advantages you create can quickly erode to nothing.

Success for Hawthorn in 2016 is a fourth straight premiership – there is nothing else that this team can hope to achieve. The team’s own internal benchmark, though, should be to think about what it needs to do to be in this same position at the start of the next decade, and act upon it.

The rest of us can only hope that the looming transition causes enough trouble that someone else gets a shot at the flag while the Hawks sort themselves out.

So Hawthorn, you may have a problem. But guess what? You’ve probably already solved it.

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