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The happy team at Hawthorn came up hapless last Friday night, as the Sydney Swans became only the second team this season to successfully exploit the Hawks’ Achilles heel.
Of course we can contribute Sydney’s win to a wide range of factors. Daniel Hannebery’s 40-disposal performance was brilliant and Josh Kennedy’s gutsy contested possessions were standouts.
But there was a sizeable difference between the two sides at one end of the field – literally.
A team boasting giants like Lance Franklin, Kurt Tippett, Sam Reid and Adam Goodes would give most basketball sides a solid run. Hawthorn’s comparatively midget backline really didn’t have much chance of going man-on-man.
Tippett was able to muster four goals, while the highly-rated Josh Gibson played on him most of the night, and Franklin kicked two big ones from his nine scoring shots, but probably should have kicked half a dozen.
The scoring shots from these tall forwards doesn’t tell the full story though. Franklin’s work rate was phenomenal in his return game, managing 21 disposals. What was even more impressive is that he took 10 marks. That’s double the tally of any Hawthorn defender. Recent history would probably suggest that if a side’s key forward takes 10 or more grabs in a match then the team is well on their way to a victory.
Sydney’s forward line dominance over Hawthorn’s defenders wasn’t all about their individual output though.
Trying to cover against a forward line that potentially has three or four focal points every time the ball is kicked inside 50 is extremely hard to defend against, especially if the backline doesn’t have ideal match-ups like Hawthorn’s. Sydney was simply spoilt for choice.
A player like Gibson has been quite successful in the past at playing on the opposition’s second biggest forward and peeling off to be the third man up in a marking contest to spoil. This tactic seems to work well for Hawthorn if the opposition only has one or two talls.
It wasn’t surprising however, to see that Gibson was heavily occupied trying to contain Tippett on Friday night and simply couldn’t manage to be that extra defensive cover when the ball was bombed in to any of the other tall forwards.
With Gibson taken out of many contests, Franklin was able to monster the likes of Ben Stratton and Matthew Suckling in many one-on-one marking contests. Sam Reid also managed to take five marks.
With these players often taking strong contested grabs or at least bringing the ball to ground, the likes of Luke Parker, Lewis Jetta and Kieran Jack were able to be very dangerous when they roved off packs in the forward 50. Parker ended up with two majors while Jetta and Jack kicked one each respectively.
It was interesting to note in the second half that Hawthorn tried a few zoning tactics. On numerous occasions late in the game the Hawks dropped several players back to block potential leads from Tippett, but by this stage he had already kicked a bag and made serious damage.
One could even argue that the Hawthorn zoning meant they over compensated for their lack of height in defence late in the game, therefore creating space for players like Nick Malceski to run through and kick two vital goals. I could be clutching at straws here though.
This game was by no means a doom and gloom story for the Hawks, but the Swans certainly picked apart one of their rare weaknesses that few teams seem to be able to capitalise on.
Geelong is really the only other side that have benefited from Hawthorn’s lack of defensive height this season. The Cats’ key forward, Tom Hawkins, was basically gifted a dream mismatch in their clash and was able to dominate late in the game. He was able to kick four goals on that occasion to seal the victory.
To be fair, the Hawks do have a few defenders out at moment. Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell might have both had stints rotating from the backline to the midfield had they played on Friday night, but that still wouldn’t have solved the height problem.
Brian Lake is possibly their biggest defensive loss at the moment because he might have had an even match-up with Franklin or Tippett. Lake seems to be having all kinds of injury troubles late in his career though – similar to how he finished off at the Bulldogs.
The Hawks next test is against table-toppers Port Adelaide. They might be able to adequately handle the Power’s live wire smalls in Chad Wingard and Robbie Gray. It could be more interesting though, to see how they match-up against Justin Westhoff and Jay Schulz when Port’s gun midfield start hitting their tall timber.
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