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Current wisdom among the AFL community is that Hawthorn are well placed in their quest for a historic fourth premiership in a row, and building nicely to peak in September.
They are yet to play their best football, but ended a round inside the top four for the first time in 2016.
They’ll further entrench themselves with a win over Gold Coast this Sunday, and hit the bye with an 11-3 win-loss record. It’s an impressive number if looked at in isolation.
As ever, though, numbers don’t tell the full story.
No-one wants to be the first to say it, so I’m going to – Hawthorn will not be winning the flag this year.
The Hawks are yet to put in a truly impressive performance to stamp themselves as premiership contenders, but the weight of their recent history does that for them in the eyes of most. And given what they’ve so spectacularly achieved in the last three or four years, no-one can blame them.
People often get hung up on the past at the expense of the present. Perception lags well behind reality.
Geelong trounced Hawthorn in Round 1, blitzing them early and then again late to record a comprehensive victory. We’ve seen the relative form from that match stand up over the season so far.
The Hawks beat West Coast at the MCG in Round 2 thanks to an early onslaught, but the Eagles’ record away from home and against fellow top eight sides since then has made that scalp less impressive with every passing week.
Hawthorn’s win over the Western Bulldogs at Etihad in Round 3 was their most meritorious, even if they did pull off last-gasp heroics to secure the victory. They kicked straight when it counted, and Tom Boyd couldn’t.
They struggled to put away St Kilda in Round 4, and Saints fans will go their entire lives unable to recover from the injustice visited upon them by the umpires that day. The Hawks were outplayed by Adelaide at the MCG in Round 5, but clawed their way to a third consecutive three-point victory – proof of their grit, determination and will, but more evidence that they were lacking in other areas.
Credit to them for getting those wins when few others could, but it felt unsustainable, and so it proved when they were humiliated by GWS in Round 6, to the tune of 75 points. The Giants ran riot that day, and it looked like the mighty had fallen. Because they had.
Rounds 7 and 8 saw two of the more unimpressive wins seen over stragglers Richmond and Fremantle this year, less than a couple of goals up against the Tigers at three-quarter time, and down to the Dockers at half-time before putting in one quarter of very good football to secure victory on each occasion.
Another top team came along in Round 9, in the form of Sydney. The Swans kicked the first goal and were never headed from that point on, pressuring the Hawks to a point they couldn’t handle, forcing turnovers and making them pay.
In Round 10, Hawthorn struggled to shake off Brisbane, which every other team has been doing easily, again relying on a strong last term after only being two goals to the good at three-quarter time.
Round 11 saw one of Hawthorn’s better wins, when their experience and smarts were too much for an inconsistent Melbourne in the wet. Round 12 caught Essendon at their lowest ebb, and a comfortable victory ensued against a team that was beaten before they arrived.
The cards lined up perfectly for the Hawks last Friday too, in their Round 13 clash against North Melbourne, another team whose ladder position is a few spaces above their true ability.
The Roos were missing half of their ten most important players, including their engine room and two best forwards, yet were still able to beat Hawthorn in general play, and were defeated only by their inability to convert their chances, with some horrendous inaccuracy in front of goal.
If anything, North proved their worth, and the Hawks lost ground in the respectability stakes.
“But they still won, and that’s all that counts,” many will say. And that’s true in terms of the four points week to week. People find it very hard to look beyond the black and white of the ladder. But it simply won’t measure up in terms of being a flag contender.
How often do we hear that the best sides play four quarters of footy, and also that form can’t be flicked on like a switch? While we despise cliché here at The Roar, these are common AFL sayings because they do stand up.
Quarters won and percentage are excellent gauges of which teams are playing the best football for the longest.
Looking at 2006-2015, all ten premiers were in the top three for ‘quarters won’ across the home-and-away season. Eight of them were in the top two.
Of the 20 grand finalists in those ten years, 16 of them were ranked first or second for quarters won. Two others were ranked third (Geelong in 2011, West Coast 2006), and two others fifth (Fremantle 2013, Port Adelaide 2007).
Hawthorn themselves have been league-leaders in the quarters won category over the last five years, ranked first in 2015, 2013 and 2012, and second in 2014 and 2011, when they’ve accumulated three premierships, one losing grand final and one (unlucky?) preliminary final loss.
The Hawks are currently ranked sixth for quarters won in 2016. They’re well off the pace.
Percentage is even more damning. Nineteen of those last 20 grand finalists have been in the top three for percentage. The last nine premiers have all been ranked in the top two.
The Hawks currently have the eighth best percentage in the league. No thanks.
They are not playing good football as often as their rivals, nor sustaining it for long enough.
They need to either improve out of sight in the second half of the year, or become an incredible statistical outlier. Both are possible, of course, but you wouldn’t want to bank on it.
And where is this improvement going to come from?
Injuries haven’t been a big issue for the Hawks. They’ve had ten players play every game, with another five to have only missed one. That puts them in the top few clubs in terms of stability.
Jarryd Roughead hasn’t been seen this year, and won’t be, so we can’t consider him part of an eventual best 22. Luke Hodge is a champion of the game, and has only played four matches. He’ll improve them.
Outside of those two, there is only one other in their best 20 players to have missed more than two games, which is Brad Hill, and some have suggested his form has been ordinary enough to warrant a spell in the VFL.
Much has been made of how often Hawthorn are being beaten in contested possession, and in fact losing that stat by big margins. And it’s true, they’d like to be winning more football at the coalface.
But their ball movement is far less slick than it has been in previous seasons. They are struggling to put together chains of possession that were their forte in the premiership years.
The quarters won stat showed Hawthorn to have been a powerhouse since 2011. In the five completed seasons including that year, the Hawks finished first, second, third, first, first for overall disposals. Control of the football was the foundation for everything they did.
This year, they are 11th. That’s right, 11th. Their dominance was built upon control. And that has now crumbled.
Hawthorn have played the three best sides in the comp, Geelong, Sydney and GWS, and have been unable to beat any of them, a 0-3 record at a percentage of 65.3.
The fourth and fifth best teams are Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs, and the Hawks won both by three points, both times off the last kick of the game. The sixth best team is North, who were crippled and wounded on the weekend, and still nearly won.
No, the Hawks won’t be winning the flag this year, and they won’t even be playing off for it. If they finish between fifth and eighth, they’ll need to win four finals in a row against quality opposition, at least one or two of them away from home. There is enough evidence this year to confirm they aren’t capable of it.
If their luck holds and opposition sides continue to hand victories to them, and Hawthorn do somehow squeeze into a top-four spot, they’ll run into a team they can’t beat in the first week, and then have to defy the odds from there.
All kudos to Hawthorn for what they achieved across 2013-15, remarkably skilled and resilient as they were. Everyone involved deserves the utmost credit.
But we can’t dwell on the past, in football or in life. Otherwise, Richmond supporters would still be celebrating the 1980 premiership. Given I am one, maybe we should.
But 2016 is the season upon us, and the flag is up for grabs. Just not for Hawthorn.