It’s exactly a year since Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera played one of the great final quarters of recent years. There was no last-minute mayhem against North Melbourne on Sunday, like there was against Melbourne in 2025. But his game in totality was perhaps even more impressive: 46 touches and four goals in a half isn’t a bad day at the office. He’d collected a stack of possessions in the first half, but he hadn’t exactly bent the game to his will. He won the first few clearances of the third quarter, an area of the game the Saints dominated all day. He then loped forward and totally changed the dynamics of the contest.
The clues to how good Nas could be were evident right at the beginning of his career. Initially it was the way he moved, the way he slalomed and slunk with minimum exertion. Then it was the way he kicked, the way he took the risky options and pulled them off. You could see it all coming together off a bank flank. Then he was thrown into the middle. Then he started drifting forward. Throw in an opposition disinclined to properly clamp him and you have an incredibly dangerous footballer. North sent about half a dozen players to him on Sunday, all with varying degrees of competence and enthusiasm. There were no Irish henchmen to take him down like last week in Geelong.
The only sour note for St Kilda was yet another injury to Max King, who was playing his first game in more than 750 days. Ross Lyon was asked about the specifics of the injury and turned it into a Marx Brothers skit. Few footballers have had such lousy luck. Few have had bodies that seem so unsuited to the demands of the game. The way he plays and the way he’s built, he always looks like an injury waiting to happen. From the beginning, King was compared a thoroughbred – hell, his nickname was “Winx” when he got to the club. But thoroughbreds go amiss. What you really want is a standard bred – a trotter who will race week in, week out for a decade.
On Saturday, Jack Gunston’s seven goals on the weekend didn’t exactly come against one of the great Essendon backlines. The Bombers had kept GWS, a team that put 14 goals on Brisbane in half an hour, to just eight majors the week before. But against Hawthorn they were a hodgepodge of the besieged, the flat footed, the chronically unlucky and the inept. He ended up outscoring the Essendon team off his own boot, which was as much of an indictment on them as it was a reflection of his own excellence.
You don’t get a lot of fireworks with Gunston. You don’t get a lot of histrionics or carefully rehearsed celebrations, or wild fluctuations in output. He comes pretty much as advertised. He plays deeper than almost any other forward of this era, with a lot of abnormal acreage cleared out in front of him. He’s always moving, always running in figure eights, cutting sideways, darting back. He excels at reading the cues farther afield. His game seems pretty simple – lead, chest mark, flawless run in, sumptuous ball strike, peerless conversion rate. But there’s a lot of craft to what he does – an innate understanding of angles, of leading patterns, and of risk-reward ratios. He’s found the perfect blend of hard graft and energy conservation.
Gunston has just signed for his 18th season. He has two bags of five this season, as well as a haul of six against Fremantle in Perth. He’s kicked a dozen goals across four grand finals, and was a hair away from winning the 2013 Norm Smith medal. He’s never had the profile or highlight reel of Buddy, Cyril, Roughy, or the Wizard. But only 36 VFL/AFL players have kicked more goals than him, and only four Hawks – Lance Franklin, Leigh Matthews, Peter Hudson and Michael Moncrieff.
What makes this Hawthorn forward line so potent is the way they organise and manipulate space, the way they work for one another, and the way they always look for the best option. They come in all shapes, sizes, temperaments and talents, but they complement one another perfectly.
In terms of personality, attitude, height and role, Nick Watson is Gunston’s polar opposite. At stoppages and at boundary throw ins, he’s a predator. He circles, feints, identifies gaps and pounces. But he’s just as good at playing tall, or as tall as someone his height can, excelling at reading the ball in the air and timing his leap. Like Gunston, he has wonderful craft and goal sense. He took a rare back seat on the weekend, almost as though the occasion, opposition and crowd weren’t quite worthy of his A-material.
There were doubts on this Hawthorn side when they were obliterated by Melbourne in Tasmania, a state where they almost never lose. But in the long grind of a season, we can forgive a contender for being asleep at the wheel for an hour or so. They played two debutants and nine players who’d played six games or less that day. Yes, they haven’t beaten much since, having walloped Essendon and Richmond in recent weeks, as well as Carlton in the rain. But they’ve proved themselves to be an exceptionally well drilled, well balanced and adaptable team. The precision and audacity of the kicks, their overlap handballs, and their textbook front-and-squares are second to none. Their big test will come at the Gabba in a fortnight, and against Collingwood the following week.
