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The AFL finals are nearly here, and come September each team will be hoping for the best possible path to grand final glory.
Football can be a bit like rock-paper-scissors in the way that clubs match-up well on certain opponents but struggle against others.
A perfect example is the love/hate triangle of Hawthorn, Geelong and Collingwood.
The Hawks have comprehensively dismantled the Pies in their past five matches but against Geelong it is a very different story, with the ‘Kennett curse’ condemning Hawthorn to a famous eleven game losing streak against ”the greatest team of all”.
Yet Geelong are far from invincible when playing Collingwood, losing the last three bouts between the two. So despite Hawthorn’s obvious superiority to the Magpies this year, Geelong may well prefer to play the ladder leaders on grand final day.
There are six teams now locked into the top eight and, as I argued last week, all are some kind of chance for a flag this year.
So let’s take a look at their recent records against each other.
Hawthorn
Bunny teams: Collingwood, Fremantle
Bogey teams: Geelong, Richmond
Just about the entire competition could qualify as Hawthorn’s bunnies in recent years, but the Cats and Tigers make for notable exceptions.
Geelong’s Paul Chapman has so far kept his promise to never lose to the Hawks again after the shock result of the 2008 grand final, but less attention has been paid to Richmond’s impressive recent form against the flag favourites. The Tigers have belted Hawthorn by 41 and 62 points the last two times they’ve played.
Geelong
Bunny teams: Hawthorn, Richmond
Bogey team: Collingwood
Collingwood’s recent successes against Geelong have been by relatively slim margins, but are wins nonetheless.
On top of their Hawthorn dominance, Geelong have also found the going easy against the men from Tigerland, with nine wins in a row. Most of the wins were while Richmond was in rebuild mode, but it is still quite a run of results.
Sydney
Bunny teams: Anyone in a final
Bogey team: Collingwood
Sydney haven’t got a particularly good record against this year’s top echelon in regular season games, but with their hard, contested brand of football they’ve got the wood over most of the other contenders when it comes to finals time.
(The exception is Richmond, but that’s only because it’s impossible to have a good recent finals record against a team that rarely makes the top eight.)
Even bogey team Collingwood, who’ve won 12 of the last 14 encounters between the pair, struggled against Sydney’s finals football last year when the Swannies triumphed in the prelim.
Fremantle
Bunny team: None
Bogey team: Hawthorn
Like Sydney, Fremantle don’t have any bunny teams among the top six, but no-one has really dominated the Dockers in recent years either.
Nobody but Hawthorn that is, who have made a mockery of Freo’s famed defensive prowess for seven of the last eight meetings between the pair. Fremantle’s one win in that time was the 2010 elimination final, so perhaps the Dockers are going to emulate Sydney’s knack of lifting for finals.
Geelong would probably think so after being stunned by the Dockers in last year’s elimination final whitewash at Docklands.
Collingwood
Bunny teams: Sydney, Richmond
Bogey teams: Hawthorn
Even from outside the top four Collingwood still have a realistic shot at the flag, but only if someone else does the dirty work and takes out Hawthorn for them.
Their defence simply can’t cope with Hawthorn’s multi-pronged attack and deadly foot skills. They’d fancy themselves against just about anyone else though.
Richmond
Bunny teams: Hawthorn
Bogey teams: Geelong, Collingwood
Richmond would realistically go in as a rank underdog against all the other contenders, despite their good form against the Hawks.
As mentioned, Geelong have had the wood over them for an eternity now, but Collingwood’s six-game winning streak against Richmond would also be giving the Tiger faithful cause for concern.
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