Just watch: the Kennett Curse will finally be lifted

A curse is a curse of course of course, but even the best of curses have to come to an end … don’t they?

Even one of the most famous curses in all of sport, The Curse of the Bambino, a hex bestowed upon the Boston Red Sox for trading one of baseball’s greatest – Babe Ruth – to arch-enemy the New York Yankees, came to an end, albeit 86 years after it began.

Surely now, after just four and half years, and 10 mostly agonising matches for their supporters, the Kennett Curse will finally be lifted on Saturday night at the MCG, when Hawthorn find a way to at last beat Geelong.

Surely … it’s time. Isn’t it?

Back in round one, on April 1, at the MCG, after I watched the Hawthorn players again shaking their heads in disbelief, some perhaps thinking another loss to Geelong was a cruel and twisted April Fools joke, I scurried to the AFL draw, hoping I might find what I found. Yes, July 6. Round 15.

I don’t have to wait until the finals to see the remarkable rivalry between these two talented clubs, continue.

Chances are they are on a collision course to meet in the finals, and possibly on September 28 in the last match of the 2013 season.

But first things first. Will the Kennett Curse extend to 11, or will the Hawks – who haven’t lost since that seven-point round one defeat – set a new club record of 13 consecutive wins, eclipsing the mark set in their premiership-winning season of 1961?

Let’s look at some facts. The curse: All came about because then Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett said after his team upset the Cats in the 2008 grand final: “What they don’t have, I don’t think, is the quality of some of our players . . . they don’t have the psychological drive that we have. We’ve beaten Geelong when it mattered over the last five years consistently.”

The Hawks have lost all 10 matches since, some from seemingly unloseable positions, eight of those games by less than 10 points, three by two points and one by a point, and two wins – one a goal from Tom Hawkins in 2012, and one a behind from Jimmy Bartel in 2009 – with a kick after the siren.

Curses, smurses! It’s not a curse, it’s a horrible, horrible coincidence for Hawks’ faithful. As Hawthorn captain Luke Hodge stated earlier this year, “the reason why Geelong beats us … the fact is they’ve been a better team than us.”

And he might be right.

From that 2008 grand final until the start of this season, the Hawks won 59 of their 95 games or 62 per cent of their matches, with one grand final loss, last year to Sydney.

Geelong in that same period won 76 of their 98 games – 78 per cent – and two premierships.

Even in round one this year, despite Hawthorn leading by five goals in the second term, maybe the Cats were again just the better team against a Hawks outfit which had a late start to their 2013 campaign after finishing up in the grand final last year.

But what about now?

Hawthorn have been impressive, ultra-impressive with 12 wins and by an average of seven goals. Included among those successes were big wins over Collingwood (55 points), Fremantle (42 points) and Sydney (37 points).

Geelong have only lost twice this season, both times by a kick, to Collingwood and then after the stunning last quarter fade against Brisbane. Their average winning margin is five goals, and they have beaten Essendon, Sydney and Fremantle.

Glance through individual player statistics and you will find standouts from both clubs in various categories and equally, both teams also take turns in heading various statistical charts.

If you looked at Geelong two weeks ago when they were beaten by Brisbane, you couldn’t get enough money on Hawthorn this week.

But there was a lot to like about the way the Cats methodically went about beating Fremantle last Saturday night.

Meanwhile, Hawthorn went on their merry way with a belting of Brisbane in Tasmania, continuing to show how they are not a team as reliant on two, three or four superstars in their team as they might have been a little in the past. The depth across the park has been a huge part of their success in 2013.

So who wins? The Hawks are favourites with the bookies, and are likely to be the favoured ones with the tipsters as well. But as they know only too well, that doesn’t matter when the ball bounces.

The players might all say it’s just another game, just the same as last week and next week, and still worth four competition points, exactly the same as every other game until the finals. That’s what they might say, but believe that if you want to. I don’t.

This one means a lot more than the four points to both teams. Psychologically, a win here is massive. Bust the curse, and the Hawks could be unstoppable heading to September. Fall to it again, and that fragility will be there for all to see.

But surely now the time is right for Kennett’s Curse to crumble. After all, don’t all curses have to come to an end some time?
Maybe, but don’t ask Chicago Cubs’ fans.

Their Curse of the Billy Goat started back in 1945. Legend goes that Billy Sianis took his pet goat Murphy to a World Series game at Wrigley Field. Murphy had his own ticket, but Cubs owner PK Wrigley ordered both goat and Sianis be ejected from the ground because of the goat’s smell.

Sianis put a hex on the Cubs, and to this day, they have not won a League Pennant or been to a World Series since.

Curses, smurses!