The Easter Monday fixture between Hawthorn and Geelong, especially the four years from 2010 to 2013, saw some of the best home and away football of the century. Monday’s game may have surpassed them all. Chris Scott did his best to talk it down. But it was a game of the highest quality, and a finish of the utmost drama. It ran the full gamut between sumptuous skill and high farce.
The second quarter in particular saw some exceptional football, with the ball pinging the length and breadth of the MCG and the skills as good as you’ll see in the modern era. The buildup to Hawthorn’s first goal from Jack Gunston featured nine propulsive handballs, each incrementally bringing them closer to the corridor. And that’s how they transitioned the ball all afternoon, with smart, quick, angle-changing handballs culminating in a final kick inside 50, invariably to Gunston in an acre of space. Geelong are no slouches in that facet of the game, but the Hawks were a bit bolder and a bit sharper.
Sam Mitchell and Chris Scott, both master manipulators, said “no more of this free-flowing stuff” and clogged the game up in the third quarter. It was still an intense affair however, with no time to think or move. When Josh Weddle flushed a long set shot from deep in the Members pocket, Hawthorn looked like the team with more run in their legs. And when Jack Ginnivan marked seconds before the final break, he stuck his tongue out and chatted amiably with all around him, no doubt saying words to the effect of “these are the moments I get out of bed for”.
Halfway through the final quarter however, Geelong had all the momentum. Mark Blicavs, the ultimate “deploy where required” player, snapped truly on his left, surely the best goal of his 299-game career. What followed was the antithesis of the previous two hours. It was 10 minutes of bonkers, error-strewn football. Mabior Chol, after nearly tripping over those long legs of his, shambled a goal but then missed two in as many minutes. Blicavs ballooned a snap (this time on his preferred foot) into the 20th row of the Members Reserve. So many others were tripping over themselves, hurtling into one another and sending the ball sailing out on the full. The mayhem was alleviated by two moments of calm competence from the respective full forwards – first from Shannon Neale and then from Mitch Lewis squaring things up at the other end.
It left one mad minute. Hawthorn surged the ball forward like a rugby union team. And it was the cleanest, coolest-headed player in his team, an immaculate footballer who is never rushed and never ruffled, who was suddenly shambling about desperately. In the maelstrom, Gunston threw his leg at a bobbling ball and Hawthorn had a rare Easter Monday win. A draw would have been fitting but it was good that one set of supporters got to celebrate a game of that quality with gusto.
Earlier in the day, Gunston had set off on one of his deadly, perfectly timed leads and immediately grabbed for his hamstring. When they replayed the incident on the big screen, the MCG crowd let out a collective groan. It was a good example of why you don’t need the intervention of the public announcer, and that a crowd can respond to an event organically and authentically without an inhouse DJ or “fun facilitator”.
Taking a deep breath and tracking way back to Good Friday, and both games were highlighted (and won) by two smothers from two very different footballers with two very different heads of hair. Fremantle’s Alex Pearce’s artfully tousled mane is straight from the early 1990s and his flying smother against Adelaide was reminiscent of Kevin Costner taking the bullet for Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard. North Melbourne’s George Wardlaw sports a far more conservative arrangement of hair but he was every bit as desperate as Pearce. He was already launching his smother when Carlton’s begoggled Frankie Evans was still organising his body and mind to kick.
Wardlaw is a danger to himself at times. But it was a brutal final quarter and he was just the man for the moment. At one point he was whacked in the stomach and he was a considerably angrier footballer from that point on. And it has to be asked, Carlton can talk about “alignment”, “leaning in”, and “ownership” and all that nonsense as much as they like, but how many of their players are as willing to go as far down the well as Wardlaw?
The Roos had some mind-bogglingly bad moments in this game – moments where they’d step on the usual rakes, give away the usual penalties and generally endeavour to shoot themselves in the foot as much as possible. But in that final 10 minutes, they looked like a proper, adult team, a team you could trust, a team that finally trusted themselves. It always felt as though the Blues had them at arm’s length. Until, as is Carlton’s way, they didn’t. The Roos smelled blood and the Blues fell in a heap. The corresponding game last year was just about as low as the North Melbourne supporting experience gets. This, like Hawthorn’s on Monday, was a win to savour.
