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In 1998 the Chicago Bulls achieved legendary status by clinching their sixth NBA championship of the 1990s – their second ‘three-peat’ of the decade. It would be the last time Michael Jordan would lead the team during their halcyon era, retiring shortly after their title winning match.
As I focus my attention towards the upcoming AFL preliminary finals in Perth this weekend, I can’t help but draw parallels between the Hawthorn Hawks of 2015 and the Chicago Bulls of 1998.
Over the last month Hawthorn’s fortitude and resilience has been questioned. The end of the era is nigh, many pundits were emphatically predicting. The Achilles heel had been exposed and Hawthorn was about to get what it had coming. Good riddance.
Losses to Port Adelaide and Richmond in the lead-up to the finals series were compounded by a demoralising trip to Perth where the West Coast Eagles excited the imagination of the football world by completely dismantling the Hawks.
The Eagles played a fast and energetic style of football that must have surely appeased any critic bemoaning the aesthetic of the modern game. Nic Naitanui displayed his athletic brilliance, nonchalantly providing the West Coast midfielders first use of the ball who then linked up with their metronomic forwards, Josh Kennedy and Mark Le Cras, to finish off the eye-catching sequence of events time and time again.
I watched on at an inner city pub in Melbourne as the new kids on the block mocked the old champ. A man standing a few metres away shouted obscenities at the Hawks players who were on their haunches thousands of kilometres away. “Go back to Glenferrie,” he repeated incessantly at the Hawthorn players on the television screen. He had appointed himself the spokesperson for every non-Hawthorn supporter.
Much like the Bulls of 1998, questions were being raised about Hawthorn’s mortality.
“If we sit here and worry about what people think about us then we don’t have a chance.”
Jordan’s impenetrable self-belief was transparent when expressing these sentiments in a 1998 press conference. The Bulls had an ageing team which had tasted success on so many occasions prior that the media was starting to wonder if they had the willpower and desire to achieve the ultimate success as a group one last time.
“They still gotta come through Chicago. Utah, Indiana, they still gotta come through Chicago.”
During the 1998 playoff series, Jordan refused to buy into the speculation that the Chicago Bulls dynasty was going to collapse before they had a chance to complete another three-peat.
Indiana had won three of the last four games in the best of seven series and were gaining confidence after losing their first two. “We will win Game 7,” Jordan told the throng of media in reference to the impending final against the Indiana Pacers for a spot in the grand final series against the Utah Jazz.
Last Saturday night against the Adelaide Crows, it appeared as though the Hawks let everyone else in on an inside joke which had previously only been shared among players and coaching staff: that Hawthorn still have the fire in their belly. That they are more than capable winning their third straight premiership and put themselves into consideration for the greatest team of all time debate.
On Friday night, the defensive mastermind Ross Lyon will be employing every weapon in his arsenal to block the Hawks’ run at another premiership. Lyon, whose teams St Kilda and Fremantle have been cruelly felled in previous grand final attempts, is in a great spot to break his personal premiership drought and lead the Dockers to their inaugural AFL premiership. A home preliminary final in front of a manic crowd, an experienced group of players, one week’s rest and a healthy list to select from, is 2015 the year of the Lyon?
Neither Fremantle nor West Coast have put a foot wrong this season and with a home preliminary final each on consecutive nights this weekend it’s more than reasonable for anyone to assume they will face off in an historic all Western Australian grand final next week.
While it is almost unfathomable that a Hawthorn player would channel Jordan and declare success in a press conference about an upcoming game before the opening bounce, it’s hard to imagine that there isn’t a lingering thought in the mind of Fremantle and West Coast players, staff and fans - we’ve still gotta go through Hawthorn.
After beating Indiana in a hard fought series, in which some Bulls players were showing visible signs of fatigue, the Jordan-led team went onto face the well rested Utah Jazz. The Bulls went onto win 1998 NBA championship and are widely considered one of the greatest NBA teams of all time.
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