The 2014 AFL grand final is set to add another chapter to the Hawthorn and Sydney rivalry. The Hawks are aiming for back to back premierships.
Standing in their way is their favourite son – the outcast player and Bondi Billionaire Lance Franklin.
Sydney has benefited from the recruitment of ex-hawthorn players Ben McGlynn and Josh Kennedy. Last off-season they succeed in luring Franklin on the largest AFL contract in history.
Adding to the storyline is a 2012 grand final victory to the Swans over the Hawks. Saturday’s game will add a another chapter to a rivalry which is set to play out over the next decade.
Hawthorn supporters do not need to be told of the influence that the big number 23 can have on the ground. The Hawks faithful have witnessed him in all his brilliance over the past nine seasons.
A simple fact from the two meetings between Buddy and the Hawks this year is that he has threatened to turn Hawthorn into his new Essendon. Over the two contests Franklin has kicked five goals and 12 behinds. Massive amounts of scoring shots for Franklin are not unusual, the worrying sign for the Hawks is that Franklin is beginning to take contested marks – an aspect that always appeared a weakness in his game at hawthorn.
For the Hawthorn back six, for the second week in a row, the spotlight will be beaming down on them. This time the battle isn’t against the creative ground level players but mythical styled monsters. Brian Lake should be better suited with his match up on Kurt Tippet.
Tippet has an excellent pair of hands overhead and is rarely outwrestled, Brian Lake can not allow Tippet to take him one out in the goal square, players like Taylor Duryea need to provide additional aerial support. If the Hawks forwards can support Lake and not allow Sydney to isolate Tippet, this will allow Brian Lake to play off and read the ball in flight and take intercept marks, which was pivotal to his 2013 Norm Smith performance.
Josh Gibson is set to get his old mate Buddy Franklin. Over eight encounters between Franklin and Gibson, Franklin has averaged 16 disposals, six marks and three goals four behinds. It is impossible to think that Franklin can be completely removed from the contest.
He is the central focus of the Sydney forward line and offensively he will get on top of Gibson and the Hawthorn back six at stages throughout the game.
The major focus for Gibson is to stay courageous and continue to compete – the one area that Gibson can dictate to Franklin is to provide offensive drive from the backline.
Franklin can not be allowed the freedom to defensively pressure the Hawthorn back six and win his own contested footy and create score involvement, Gibson must aim for 20 possessions to make Franklin accountable.
Matt Spangher will take Reid and a combination of Shaun Burgoyne, Luke Hodge, Grant Birchall and Ben Stratton will all at times meet Adam Goodes. They key to Adam Goodes is to not allow him space at the stoppages in the forward 50, the Hawthorn players must have the discipline to stay goal side.
Obviously as this article has shown, it is hard to ignore the marquee Sydney forward line. Alastair Clarkson will have made a conscious effort to drill into the Hawthorn players, that the dangers of the Sydney team are far greater than four forwards.
You could write down a list of both teams’ midfields and it would be hard to go through and separate who bats deeper. There are bona fide weapons all across the ground. The fact is both midfields are elite, contested, hard-running units.
The recent history between the two clubs since the 2012 grand final has Hawthorn boasting a four win, one loss record against the Swans. Three of these victories have been on the MCG and the most recent defeat to the Swans was in Round 8, 2014 at ANZ stadium. Hawthorn was without Luke Hodge, Sam Mitchell and Brian Lake for that encounter.
As much has been made of the Sydney forward line, down the other end there are plenty of problems for the Sydney team. As Hawthorn doesn’t have a true match-up for Franklin, Sydney is without anyone who can go with Jarryd Roughead. Roughead has kicked four goals is three of the previous five meetings.
Along with Roughead, fellow All-Australian Luke Breust and Jack Gunston as a trio have averaged 12 scoring shots per match against Sydney since the 2012 grand final.
The competitive advantage that Hawthorn can clearly exploit over Sydney is in the ruck department. I believe Ben McEvoy should make his way into the side at the expense of Jonathon Ceglar. McEvoy has grand final experience with StKilda, and has averaged 11.3 disposals and 26 hitouts per contest against Sydney over the course of his career.
McEvoy provides a strong overhead marking contest, and elite endurance in the Ruck position. By allowing McEvoy to play the majority of game time in the Ruck it allows David Hale to get off the leash and to push forward.
Since the 2012 grand final Hale has averaged just a shade under two goals a contest against the Swans.
The biggest name on the selection table this week is Cyril Rioli. His wizardry is no secret to anyone in the league. Interestingly though, Cyril has only played against the Swans in five of their last ten contests.
In these matches, he hasn’t caused the swans too many headaches. The hamstring may be clear; his fitness and ability to play at grand final intensity for 120 minutes must be in question.
Cyril is capable of producing 15 minutes of match-winning football, which can swing the contest on its head. If he is unfit, his repeat efforts to continuous get to the contest and to provide the two-way running necessary to go with the Sydney mids and backs will only be detrimental the Hawthorn structure.
The Hawks are the most efficient team when going forward in the competition and their overall conversion rate when attacking is the most damaging among all teams.
The ruck work of McEvoy (or Ceglar) and Hale is key, if they can control the stoppages it allows the Hawthorn midfielders to win the clearances and provide best use to their forwards.
I would like to see the Hawthorn forwards work them selves up the ground and provide themselves with space to work back into, therefore isolating themselves into one on one match ups!
Tip: Hawthorn by 14 points
Norm Smith: Luke Breust
Olivia Watts
Roar Guru
Sincere congratulations to the Hawthorn Football Club and their many supporters on here, for an emphatic and impressive Grand Final win over my much loved Swans. It is a comfort to have lost to a team which played so well and thoroughly deserved their victory. The best team by far on the day won and we have no excuses. To my Swans, thank you for an exciting 2014 and I know you gave all you had. I'm proud of you.
Fabes
Guest
Olivia, your "play the man not the ball" statement is exactly why I think you speak crap. Always some underhanded statement in your posts like "a chicken wing tackle" - yes I am a Hawks man and yes I think that is underhanded also. Take your own advice. Play the ball. Have a nice day. Carn the Mighty Hawks
Fabes
Guest
Thanks Winston. If you look at all my posts you would see a flavour of unbiased opinions and admiration for the opponent with a footnote at each stating: "Carn the Mighty Hawks" Cheers
Fabes
Guest
Agree New York. Anyone with a bit of nous can see through her biased posts despite any attempts to "play nice".
Olivia Watts
Roar Guru
Eddy, having picked Rioli, I hope they play him. Little "will he/won't he play" Games are beneath Clarkson, so I believe he is sure that Rioli has a role and can play it well. Although I thought it unlikely after the VFL GF, Clarkson - who knows a darn sight more about his players than I ever will - obviously liked what he saw and has a game plan for Rioli to play. I'm less sure about the selection of Lewis. Once again, they are much closer to the player than I, but his injury looked painful and must have affected his training this week at some level. I imagine it comes down to a value judgement based on team balance but I won't be surprised to see the final decision left on him til Saturday afternoon, so Sewell is still a real chance to play. I,d much rather be in the Swans position of having a fit and settled line up. This really is a line ball game. My heart says Sydney, my head says it's there to be taken by whoever gets and holds onto the early momentum. Neither side will give up or fold under pressure - they thrive on a hard, pressure filled contest. Both are well coached, both have absolute champions in their ranks and exciting kids coming through. Whoever wins will be a worthy winner. Whoever loses will make no excuses. Whatever happens, I'll keep on chatting about this wonderful game.
Jim
Guest
Hehe NYH Smith has been beaten about twice in 5 years - including by Bruest last time we met. He won't get beaten again I'd hope, but as you say I think he will go and do another hatchet job on Rioli :) Bruest is always a hard match up - maybe they might send Rohan to him initially, but really not sure who will get that difficult job. And Steve, why can't people have a feeling of ownership and pride about their team? What is wrong with that?
Steve
Guest
If I read another swans supporter referring to Sydney as "my swannies", I may just hurl all over my computer screen
New York Hawk
Guest
Sounds like there are a lot of things you can't get past about Hawks supporters, Nat. Pity your Swans won't get past the Hawks on the weekend. Your boy Smith got toweled up by Breust last time so maybe he takes Rioli but that leaves Breust with a lesser opponent. My guess is Breust kicks six and wins the Norm Smith. And just so we are clear, we beat you in the last game, we kicked about 50 more goals than you over the course of the season, and we have a far better spread of goal kickers than you. So yea, or is fair that Hawks supporters laud our forward line. It would be like me saying "I can't get past Swans supporters constantly talking up their midfield".
New York Hawk
Guest
Olivia has se interesting insight on a lot of her posts, just not this one.
Mark
Guest
Worst troll I've ever seen. Back to the drawing board you dunce.
EddyJ
Guest
The talk about Cyril Rioli being included is a bit of a smokescreen and bluff, which I don't think John Longmire is going to fall for. If you were an AFL coach playing in a Grand Final, would you include a player who has played only 65 minutes of a lower grade match over the past three months? A player who hasn't got such a great grand final record anyway (I'll admit that it's not bad like Leon Davis' grand final record, but nothing spectacular). A player who has a reasonable chance of breaking down? No, of course you wouldn't. What is most surprising is the geniuses in the media are still writing about it as through it's a sure thing. UPDATE: Looks like Hawthorn has named Rioli in their Grand Final team – what are they thinking! I expect that he will be a late withdrawal, because surely they can't be serious about this.
Jack Smith
Roar Guru
I'm not saying he has no right to publish his opinion. I was just pointing out that given it is from a playing team, there will be sheer bias. If a Brisbane supporter were to right this article, credibility would rise. It is well written no doubt also.
Me Too
Guest
Well you should. It seems every other man and his dog has. Thank god for the couple of Hawks blogs
Natalie SwansFan
Guest
I love it how Hawthorn supporters speak of the the 4-1 record but fail to include the important Grand Final loss which actually makes it 4-2. It is after all a Grand Final on Saturday, not a home and away match or a QF. A Grand Final. In which the record is 1-0 in favour of my Swannies. I think it is funny that it is ok to go 5 games back which includes the two this year, the QF last season and the two home and aways, but they cleverly leave out the big dance.....why is that? I also still can't get passed the fact that Hawthorn supporters continually raise the potency of the trio of forwards they have. They have undeniably kicked more goals than my Swannies trio. However they could not do this against Sydney. The stats are fantastic when you go back 5 games (oh but leave out the GF), but if you look at the games this season, our trio had 29 scoring shots to Hawthorns 22. So you can hold onto that stat as much as you like, in your big wins over St Kilda and Gold Coast where lots of goals were scored, but you simply did not do it against my Swannies. As for Cyril, it would be catastrophic for Clarko to play him and I truly hope he doesn't. If he does, Nick Smith will do the job on him. And as for a result and a Norm Smith, it's my Swannies by 28 and Benny McGlynn will play the game of his life.
Radelaide
Guest
Since the national competition has been around only once has the lower ranked defense won the GF, so based on that I'm picking Sydney, but history has been broken before because that once was Hawthorn beating Geelong in 2008.
Mango Jack
Guest
Play nice, Fabes.
Winston
Guest
I haven't looked up the history of what else Fabes has said, but on face value I think Fabes is just saying that Olivia's post was a lot of words with not much meaning.
Jim
Guest
There will be plenty of goodwill between players, without question. I'm just hoping I don't see the feral behaviour I saw at the Rd 18 game, as it was pretty horrific, and directed towards fans without reason or invite on the way out, just because they were in red and white. Completely uncalled for and completely unnecessary - obviously some fans (and this doesn't just apply to the Hawks cause most teams have 'em) seem to only know how to celebrate winning by being a sore winner and rubbing it in the faces of those that support the team that lost. Looking forward to a great game on Saturday and hoping the boys in Red and White get up - but if not, I'll still be proud of my team and what they've achieved, even if I'm disappointed in the immediate aftermath.
Jim
Guest
I can't see where you have issue with what Olivia said Fabes. Plenty of grand finals are decided by luck- look at St Kilda in 09/10 and how unlucky they were to not win a flag.
Olivia Watts
Roar Guru
I bow to your wisdom on that score Fabes ............ After all, if anyone knows crap intimately it would be you. What you call crap I call a different perspective and I enjoy reading the various points of view very much, even at the expense of comments such as yours which "play the man, not the ball". Perhaps you will share your thoughts on the article with us sometime. Have a nice day, and go Sydney.