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Is this as close to a heavyweight bout as we get in Australian rules football? The champs, entering the twilight of their career, face off against a challenger renewed.
The last time Hawthorn and Sydney met, this was a bloodbath, and not the way of the Bloods. Tonight is a huge game for both sides.
Hawthorn and Sydney play each other a lot. In the past four seasons, they’ve faced off twice in the home-and-away season and have met again in September every year bar the last. The record is heavily skewed in Hawthorn’s favour, 7-4, with the Hawks holding a handy, but hardly hefty, 18-point per game aggregate margin over the Swans.
Of interest in this match is how the Swans have fared under auspices of the MCG: they’ve won two of the six games, and in both of those victories have kept the Hawks under 100 points and failed to move their own score into triple digits.
Their last victory, in Round 8 last season, flattened the Hawks to a 4-4 record, and was arguably the catalyst behind Hawthorn’s eight-game winning streak with a percentage of 200 in the proceeding eight rounds. The other one was the 2012 grand final.
That game is of interest because it has absolutely no bearing on this result. The Swans have finally thrown off the sludgy shackles of their tactical past, and emerged a free-running team that wants to play games with pace and tempo. The Hawks are still the Hawks, but aren’t the world-beaters that they have been in recent years.
This one gets a little interesting when you scratch beneath the surface of these numbers, though. Your sentiment towards each team, and where they’re at right now, could very well be the deciding factor regarding who you think will win this game – neither team mounts a particularly compelling case over the other, is what I’m saying.
Hawthorn are coasting along, so the thinking goes, and are holding it all in reserve for when the real action begins towards the back end of the season. As it stands, the Hawks’ percentage of 104.8 is their worst through eight rounds since 2010, before they emerged as the soul destroyers they are now. Is that an indicator of where they’re truly at; a team on the downslope after four impossibly good seasons of footy?
While the Swans, well, until a fortnight ago they were one of the darlings of the competition. Sydney are playing like a team injected with young blood, but that extends beyond personnel and into tactics. No team is playing with as much pace – as we discussed earlier in the week, the Swans have the highest total number of inside 50s per game – and reckless abandon as Sydney, and its working.
Sydney’s powerful midfield should be able to account for Hawthorn’s more sluggish group with quick hands and a wide-open stance. The return of Josh Kennedy, who might have been the difference in last week’s loss given the game was decided by a point, will mean the group is at full strength. Hawthorn are close to their apex, too, with Luke Hodge the only top line regular missing.
In their Round 14 match last year, Hawthorn eviscerated the Swans 48-27 in the clearance stakes, an outcome that is more likely to be reversed than carried given Sydney (+4 per game) are performing better in this area than the Hawks (-2.8 per game) on the year. The Swans should probably get the tick here, but if there’s one thing we know about the Hawks, it’s that they can pull out a butcher’s knife from their top draw when it is required.
As ever, the forward line match-ups look like where the game could be won and lost in lieu of a team dominating the middle of the ground.
Do the Hawks have a genuine answer to Lance Franklin? The Pies, Blues, Giants, Crows, Eagles, Lions, Bombers and Tigers have all asked the question in the first two months of the season and have been found wanting. The undisputed best defender in the game – and one of the best handful of players in the game – Alex Rance played an excellent game, and Buddy still kicked five goals and helped out on three more.
Given his current form, I’m not sure Alastair Clarkson will bother to stop Franklin unless he’s really close to goal. Instead, he’ll put significant pressure on the remainder of Sydney’s forward line and try and choke up those avenues to goal. That might encourage Franklin to roam further away from goal, taking away his direct scoring effectiveness but perhaps allowing him to set more of the play up.
It’s not as though he can’t kick them from the moon, though.
What a goal by Franklin!!!!!! He now has two and it's only six minutes in… #AFLTigersSwans https://t.co/5ZHvjsX3NB pic.twitter.com/TvHDljTmIW
— SportsMate Mobile (@Sportsmate) May 14, 2016
Franklin’s presence in this game looms large. But equally as important will be what the Swans do in response to Hawthorn’s multiple avenues to goal – particularly the little guys.
Cyril Rioli returns to the side this week, and so the shorty squad of Rioli, Paul Puopolo and Luke Breust are all in place. The Swans have Nick Smith to lock down on whoever plays closest to goal – probably Puopolo – while Jeremy Laidler is a prototypical medium defender – so he’ll get Breust. The match-ups exist, but Sydney’s noted problems defending one-on-one play will be made double by the line-up Hawthorn will throw at them.
The most impressive feature of Hawthorn’s front six right now is how they’re able to throw completely different looks at the opposition. Want to test them out overhead? Throw a resting ruckman in deep and station both James Sicily and Jack Gunston as leading half forwards. Feel like playing some ground ball? Put Gunston deep, clear the ruckman out, and watch the smalls go to work.
It’ll be a nightmare for Sydney’s defenders to put up with, but they’ll have to find a way.
Last week, I went with my brain over my ba… heart. This week, Sydney’s midfield has Hawthorn’s measure, but down both of the pointy ends of the ground, the Hawks will be able to overmatch the Swans.
So it’s a tip for Hawthorn for me, in a four-goal victory which might fluctuate in line with the midfield battle. If the Swans managed to dominate out of the middle, though, it projects as a close game.
The stakes are high. Pending other results, the Swans could fall right back into the pack with a loss while the Hawks could get close to taking their rightful place at the head of the table with a big win.
And as we discussed earlier this week, the battle for the top eight looks set to be intense, and any game between prospective finalists becomes important for positioning. It’ll be grand.
That’s my Friday Night Forecast, what’s yours?