The death of the Hawthorn Hawks has been greatly exaggerated

Hahahahaha. That’s Alastair Clarkson after reading the coverage of his team post its semi-final exit at the hands of the Western Bulldogs last Friday night. You think the Hawthorn Hawks are finished? That’s funny.

There is no getting around this fact; Footscray made Hawthorn look every bit the veteran team they are, hitting them with pace and endeavour and bodies at the contest in a manner that the Hawks could not counter.

It ended a run of four straight grand final berths, which resulted in three premierships and their ascension to the title of greatest team of the modern era.

Their finals campaign ended in a goose egg for the first time since 2010. They are likely to enter the 2017 season as the oldest team in the league, following Fremantle and North Melbourne’s respective plays for the future.

Wouldn’t you know it: ‘The Hawthorn era is over’ was the Saturday morning headline. Social media lit up with eulogies on a progressively escalating continuum of reverence – from “good riddance” to “this is somewhat sad”.

That’s cute. Hawthorn lost, yes, but they are not done. Not by a long shot. (Click to Tweet)

Informed readers would be aware…
Hawthorn came into this year gunning for their fourth straight flag. But Clarkson and his band of head coaches in waiting also entered 2016 with a dilemma: a looming demographic crisis that threatened to lead to a harsh crash before the end of the decade. It meant this season was a delicate balancing act – the primal need to chase history versus the pull of forward planning.

Sydney famously leaned heavily on their youth this season, which has paid off handsomely. The Hawks’ core remains well in place, but as the season went on we got to see a glimpse of the future.

Hawkthorn facilitated the debut of seven newbies in 2016, and all up pumped 72 games into first and second-year players. By contrast, their 2015 grand final opponents, West Coast, handed out freshly minted royal blue jumpers to two debutantes, and provided 37 games to players who had debuted this year or last. North Melbourne had one player debut (Corey Wagner), and had 16 games spread between he and Trend Dumont. ]

For a team with a flag in their sight, Hawthorn managed to balance the here and now and the future well.

But by the time Friday had rolled around, the Hawks of 2016 were largely the Hawks of 2015, save a few injury-induced additions. Out of their 2015 grand final team came David Hale, Brian Lake, Jarryd Roughead and Matt Suckling; in came Jack Fitzpatrick, Billy Hartung, James Sicily and Brendon Whitecross. There were 3421 games of experience in Hawthorn’s defeated semi-final team, compared to 3670 in their victorious grand final team.

In their moment of greatest need, Clarkson turned to the tried and tested, Only 21-year-old Sicily could claim to have been baptised in the fire of September. This is perfectly rational.

But it does reinforce the notion from March that Hawthorn’s adjustment lays ahead of them. While four-time premiership players Shaun Burgoyne, Josh Gibson, Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell all re-signed for 2017, the club enter the year some way down the ticket in premiership betting. Football’s promise of 2016 was an even season, and as it turns out it was a harbinger of a more even competition across the board – for the most part.

The Cats have been inspired by the Dangerfield Revolution. The Giants Dynasty is upon us. Sydney’s evolution from stodgy to spirited is complete. The Western Bulldogs are a Bob Murphy AFL 360 appearance away from beginning a legendary heel turn. West Coast and Adelaide aren’t going anywhere, and any of the sides finishing outside of the bottom four should harbour genuine finals ambitions in 2017.

Your move, Hawks.

Put some more bullets in the chamber
Fortunately (or unfortunately) for us all, the Hawks’ moves are well telegraphed – or at least the rumours of whom is in their sights are beyond the stage of whispers. The only question is how they plan to fit their targets in.

Hawthorn are the nominated destination of oft-injured Gold Coast Sun Jaeger O’Meara, Sydney possession machine Tom Mitchell, and Tigers restricted free-agent Ty Vickery. Three players, aged 24, 24 and 27 respectively (in 2017), who the Hawks will seek to add this off season to recharge their list just as it begins to hit a demographic tipping point.

Vickery can join Hawthorn for no consideration if Richmond are happy to trade a four-year, above market contract for a compensatory draft pick. There has been some talk in recent days that the Tigers may match Hawthorn’s supposedly reasonably contract offer in an effort to force a trade and extract some extra value – I’m not sure that’s how this is going to go down.

I would hazard a guess Vickery and his management approached the club rather than the other way around, which is fine, but it means they may not be into him as much as he is into them.

Vickery is an interesting choice, but if you squint his value makes sense. Roughead appears set to miss 2017 as a result of his cancer treatment, meaning Hawthorn will enter the year with Jack Gunston, Sicily and a resting ruckman as their tall forward set up. That’s fine, but it lacks the bail-out option most other teams have. It also means the Hawks carry two ruckmen in their line up as a standard form, which is becoming increasingly uncommon as teams pump themselves full of mid sized players at both ends of the ground.

Adding Vickery, and playing him as a 60-40 forward-ruck shifts Hawthorn’s structure significantly. It would allow for a more constant goal-scoring threat in the Hawthorn forward line, consigning the likes of Jack Fitzpatrick, Jonathon Ceglar and Marc Pittonet to specialist, match up driven starters. For all of his maligned attributes, Vickery is an accurate kick for goal, and is a strong overheard mark. His tendency to fade in and out of games will doubtlessly be fixed by the Hawks – otherwise he won’t play.

O’Meara and Mitchell have the potential to add to Hawthorn at their weakest point: inside midfield, which is ultimately what bought the Hawks unstuck in their two finals losses.

We talked about O’Meara last week – he is something of an unknown quantity, a potential superstar cloked in the mystery of a repaired patella tendon.

Mitchell’s fit is a bit more predictable, if only because he’s a predictable footballer. Since bursting onto the scene as a fantasy football staple in 2013, Mitchell has become one of the game’s most consistent accumulators – rarely out of games for long, and rarely touching the ball less than 20 times a week.

He comes without the upside of O’Meara, but after playing 43 straight games following a couple of contact-related injuries in 2013 and 2014, he also lacks the downside. Mitchell’s injury history would be concerning if he was, say, 28 and those injuries occurred in his prime years. But heading from the pristine pastures of Sydney to the rolling hills of Hawthorn on a games-played streak approaching half a century will negate this almost completely.

At his best, Mitchell can play the role of a more nimble Matt Priddis – an in-and-under machine with the skip to act as the secondary receiver in the clinches. He isn’t the quickest player, but his quick hands and feet make up for this in tight. He can be turned to for a reliable shut-down job too, switching mode in game and affording current coach John Longmire the luxury of different looks through the middle of the ground.

Hawthorn’s problems winning the ball in tight have been well-documented in recent times, including by myself just before the finals got underway. Clarkson doubled down on his team’s ability to win the outside battle, but in the end, two drubbings at the coalface (Hawthorn lost the contested possession count by 52 and 50 in the past fortnight – the equal second loss and fourth largest loss of the year, respectively) proved too much.

Zigging where the competition zags has been the Hawthorn way during their run, but their portfolio was too invested in silk. They need more iron ore. Adding O’Meara and Mitchell will help bring some balance to a midfield heavy on excellent ball users, but evidently light on grunt.

Don’t let the door hit you on the way out
As above, the easy part is fitting in new players that can address deficiencies; making room for them is the challenge.

The impending departure of Brad Hill to Fremantle helps free up a full list spot, and a salary slot that would probably go a long way to fitting Vickery into the picture. The draft pick that is likely to flow Hawthorn’s way will help grease the wheels for either Vickery, in the case of a free agent offer match, or to pry O’Meara or Mitchell loose from their respective locales.

Other than Hill, there have been few, if any, players linked to the Hawthorn departure lounge. This could get tricky, given neither of their midfield targets will come cheap – on either the salary or trade front.

The Suns are chasing a mature player and a pick, yet there is no practical way the Hawks can deliver a higher pick without trading a key component of their team, and they won’t do that in this re-tooling phase of their development. And please, Hill is not worth Fremantle’s first round pick, so don’t insult everyone’s intelligence by suggesting as much.

It makes the floating of a Luke Breust departure fascinating. Breust is a restricted free agent at the end of next season, with the Hawks potentially losing him for nothing. Subject to his approval, he could move to the Suns with pick 14 for O’Meara, and one would think both sides would be made whole. Losing Breust, an excellent medium-sized forward who can rotate through the middle of the ground, might be a cost the Hawks are willing to wear to bring O’Meara in. Otherwise, Gold Coast may ask for one of Hawthorn’s bevy of middle-aged midfielders and some extra consideration to get the deal done.

Mitchell may be more of a challenge, and is likely to necessitate the Hawks trade their future first round pick to satisfy Sydney. It’s unclear whether the Swans would chase a Hawthorn player – for now, picks are still worth academy points for Sydney, and so picks could work.

However, Sydney have reportedly been linked to Carlton half back Zach Tuohy in the past week, suggesting there may be some behind-the-scenes discussion going on between the Blues and Swans. Tuohy represents a ready-made replacement for Jarryd McVeigh, who turns 34 next season. Tuohy and a pick might be enough for the Swans, particularly if Mitchell and the Sydney football department can’t make salaries work – reportedly the key sticking point in negotiations.

The Mitchell trade remains fluid, and while Hawthorn would enjoy his services, O’Meara looks to be the priority. Suffice to say, the Hawks will have to part ways with a few players on the periphery to make their list work, and help fit in three new salaries which could amount to between $1.5 million and $2 million when combined.

Fitting all three players into what looms as a very tight Hawthorn salary cap may also prove a bridge too far, although there are ways to make things work. Hawthorn’s four veterans have reportedly taken significant pay cuts to play on in 2017, due to the winding up of the veteran’s allowance and likely as a result of a relative decline in their share of the on-field workload.

Offsetting this is the AFL’s concession to lift the salary cap by the average amount of veteran’s allowance payable by club in 2016 – where Hawthorn’s quartet of vets are taking substantial pay cuts, their presence in the 2016 Total Player Payments calculation could help create wiggle room in 2017.

There is also the prospect of a very large increase in the salary cap, owing to the AFL’s new broadcast agreement and the finalisation of the collective bargaining agreement with the AFL Player’s Association. That this document remains in flux just three weeks before the player exchange period opens is approaching a farce – not that you’d know it, given it is almost never reported.

Speaking of the CBA, there are plenty of clauses which exist within it that allow clubs and players who are willing to get creative to create mutually beneficial outcomes. For example, the CBA states that match payments in finals are not counted towards the salary cap, and there is no clause that governs maximum match payments, nor whether regular season and finals match payments can differ. What’s stopping Hawthorn from saying to Luke Hodge that they’ll pay him $30,000 per finals appearance as a way of limiting his hit on the salary cap?

An emerging pressure point: Hawthorn’s defence
These moves are likely to come at the expense of Hawthorn injecting some improvement into an emerging pressure point, their back six.

The Hawks ended the home-and-away season as the league’s seventh-ranked defence, with a Defensive Efficiency Rating of +7.9. It was the first time they have been outside of the top six defensively since 2009, and was mostly driven by their tendency to give up shots at the league average rate, but for shots to be higher quality on average.

James Frawley took the number one crown from Brian Lake in the off season, resulting in everyone else sliding up a position. It meant Josh Gibson was required to play a more direct defensive-oriented role than in the past, with Grant Birchall also shouldering some more stopping responsibilities. It evidently didn’t work as well as planned. The market for key defenders is chock full of talent in 2016, and the Hawks could do well to search for an extra stopper to add to their stable for next season. That would also come at a cost to their existing playing group.

In saying that, part of the problem Hawthorn have in stopping their opponents creating quality scoring opportunities is the downstream effect of their middling midfield.

Should the Hawks land their big fish, we may very well find ourselves in a situation where the guys down back don’t matter as much – the ball won’t be down there often enough. Two prime-age midfielders would also certainly squeeze Hodge out of the middle more frequently, and Hodge has been known to play defence well over the course of his career.

Hawthorn, you may have a problem
Hawthorn are going to have to make some sacrifices in order to make this all work. But if they can make it work, they will be premiership contenders once more.

As it stands, the Hawks are sixth on the premiership betting line for 2017, behind the four remaining sides and Adelaide. While it is totally reasonable for markets to be framed in this way given Hawthorn’s exit from this year’s final series, one expects their dalliance with ‘good not great’ has about three weeks to run.

Adding prime-age midfielders like O’Meara and Mitchell help address pressing needs. Adding Vickery could shake up their already potent forward half. Retaining their veterans is a crystal clear signal of intent: we are not finished winning premierships yet.

So, just as in the pre-season, we find the Hawks sitting on the precipice of a decline. As the season unfolded, that problem we identified manifested in a rash of close wins, a decline in on-field performance, and a two-up, two-down finals exit.

Hawthorn have a problem. Let’s see how they go solving it. You would be foolish to doubt them, on what we know this organisation is capable of.