2025 Hawks death ride

[Obeanie1]

Possibly banking on them getting ahead of themselves and thinking that it will just happen for them.

A bit like adelaide this year after that umpiring **** up cost them finals.

Speaking of adelaide, surely the pressure is on them and nicks to make finals this year.

Exactly.

Looked like the better teams worked out Sam's open spread forward line tactic late in the year. And all the other clubs will take that on board and plan accordingly for next season.

Players like a Barrass and Battle may just take a little while to adjust to new team mates, new coach and new game plan. Not easy to change environments and automatically hit your best form you had playing in the same side for 9 years.

Tougher draw due to finishing higher.

It is a tough competition.

 

[random260]

Copium. We said that about collingwood and they won the flag.

The reality is Hawks can get to a grand final. Carlton will never get to a grand final and win a prelim

 

[whatis]

Head-to-head finals record:

Ken Hinkley: 1
Master Coach Sam Mitchell: 0

 

[WCE_Phill]

Calling it now, Hawks to finish bottom 6

Our 2025 draft hand will be

I'm going WCE 15th and Hawks 13th

Leaving us 4, 6, 22, 24, 40, 42

Lots of options to trade for Warner and use the later picks to get up the order

 

[WCEforeverman]

I'm more optimistic with Carlton than Hawthorn. It's easy to overlook how many injuries they had this year. Cripps, Curnow, McKay, Western and Walsh is a good spread of high end talent over the field.

Hawks are essentially a bunch of spare parts cobbled together by a mad man (Mitchell). Hinkley broke their gameplan in the finals and I expected other teams to take note. Their young punks also seem to be drinking their bathwater heavily. I could see them doing a Freo 2023 and finishing bottom 4.

I am not sure how fixturing works anymore but don't they get a tougher run of double-ups next year also?

 

[eaglevision]

I am not sure how fixturing works anymore but don't they get a tougher run of double-ups next year also?

They get a top 6 fixture so yes. The difficulty is broken up into thirds of the ladder. Then the AFL decide who they want to play finals anyway.

 

[Ambrose Burnside]

Lots of options to trade out of the top 10 for peanuts form Richmond

 

[Keys]

Hawthorn’s double ups in 2024 :

• Adelaide (10th-2023, 15th-2024)
• Collingwood (1st-2023, 9th-2024)
• Geelong (12th-2023, 3rd-2024)
• GWS (4th-2023, 5th-2024)
• North (17th-2023, 17th-2024)
• Richmond (13th-2023, 18th-2024)

After finishing 16th in 2023 they were drawn to play twice against 2x bottom 6 teams, 2x middle 6 teams and 2x top 6 teams based on 2023 positions.

Turns out on actual 2024 results they played 3 of the bottom 4 twice (for 6 wins), two finalists twice (for 1 win) and split their two games against 9th placed Collingwood

Overall they were 7-0 against sides in the bottom 4, and 7-9 against the rest (4-5 against top 8 sides)

They aren’t going to get Richmond and North twice this year and likely only get a double up against one of this years bottom 6. Probably 2 against top 6 sides and 3 against middle 6 teams

It’ll be a harder draw but as always with these things teams rise and fall so a perceived hard draw can become easier or vice versa

Hawthorn’s challenge will be to catch lightning in a bottle again. After 1 win from their first 7, they lost just 3 of their last 16 on the back of an incredible wave of momentum

They had very few injuries in that run (only used 34 players for the season which was equal 2nd lowest behind Sydney) as everything clicked for them. Arguably caught sides out with their game plan which will be studied by oppo coaches over summer

Players like Moore, Hardwick, McDonald, Worpel, Newcombe, Meek, Nash, Scrimshaw and DAmbrosio all had arguably career best years. Can they all back it up?

Mitchell will be doing all he can to make sure they don’t get ahead of themselves but they’re a pretty brash young group who will now have to deal with a level of expectation they didn’t have in 2024

Barrass and Battle will stiffen up their defence and possibly allow Sicily to play forward more - but will he have as much impact as a more permanent forward rather than a Hunter style pinch hitter/swingman

Hawthorn are also something of an outlier in that their best players aren’t high draft picks so on face value they’re performing above their draft value.

In fact their high picks aren’t influencing games that much - Watson did well for a first year player, McKenzie was solid, Ward couldn’t cement a spot and DGB just got delisted. Day and Weddle are the best of their R1 picks and they were both taken in the teens

Remains to be seen if they can back it up but you can see why our analytics pointed to Carlton being more successful in 2025 - more base talent and a 2024 blighted by injury when compared to Hawthorn

I get 2018-19 Melbourne vibes from them. Hopefully I’m right

 

[TheGhostOfJohnBelushi]

Hawks got a great fixture this year:

• Got 5 games against Richmond, North and us, so that's a 5 win prop to start with.
• Played in Melbourne or Tasmania 16 times, and a 17th in an "away" final to the Bulldogs at the MCG.
• Interstate clubs they played away were Gold Coast (big loss), Port (small loss), Eagles (big win), Adelaide (big win), GWS in Canberra (small loss), so they avoided the 3 toughest away visits in Brisbane, Sydney and Fremantle.

Funnily enough, if you flip the 1 point loss they had to Port during the season (where the Hawks led by like 7 goals late in the 3rd), they would have finished 2nd! And this was after losing the first 5 games of the season.

They had some good form but they also benefitted from a softer draw that played into that, as well as other clubs really dropping the bundle - Carlton, Fremantle, Essendon, Collingwood. They'll be in the batch of a lot of the comp being fairly even but if several sides get their shit together and dominate, they'll be better than the Hawks. And you wouldn't expect them to get such a good draw next season, which means they're fighting with those sorts of sides for the wins they need, rather than getting the autoboost from the tailend of the ladder.

I tell ya, we better damn well get Richmond twice next year!

 

[Ghossein]

Just judging purely on list talent, Hawks overperformed in 2024 and Carlton underperformed, maybe that was the calculation?

I don't know how they get worse with Barrass in their line up but time will tell

 

[Shueygod]

Carlton’s list is far more talented than Hawks, choosing their picks for as the easiest thing of all time. Carlton’s range would be 2nd to 8th, hawks range probably 4th to 12th.

 

[whatis]

 

[Carbine Chaos]

View attachment 2154809

I kinda like it.

Beats the clipart logos some clubs have now.