Autopsy Hawthorn pipped at the post by Port Adelaide

[The hands of stone]

Port MADE it personal. that's the whole point whatever intention or light hearted banter was intended.

'see you in 14 days' in ports language is they think we are no good, weak easy beats.

you don't give any club especially port any ammo.

if I'm a port player that message is burning through my mind all game. every contest every 50-50 ball. it was clear as day to see during the match.

Old mate took it personally but that's the generation gap I'm talking about .

Pro athletes are rarely motivated by that type of thing. They are motivated by the competition ,pride in performance and to be the best and succeed .

Was it mentioned , yes old mate was all over it . Did most Port players care about that ? I highly doubt it and they have said as much .

 

[RCAB]

That's a completely nonsensical response that has absolutely nothing to do with my post, but nevermind. And sporting organisations absolutely do get ahead of themselves. Perhaps you are just privileged enough to support a club who hasn't done that any time recently?

Actions speak louder than words. You guys played much better this week, and we had the most fumbles and unforced errors in a game this season. That speaks loudest.

Yet you still only won by 3 points, but you're coach and captained carried on like they'd smashed us.

You can say my post in nonsensical but because of your clubs carry on after the game had finished, I'm predicting 60+ margin victory next time we play Port. This will happen. You can say I'm getting ahead of myself. You won't come back and reply.

 

[RCAB]

port games are definitely going to be extra spicy especially if that buffoon is still coaching them

He obviously will be given they've been supporting him all week, despite his most deplorable moment.

 

[Bedi]

Didn’t Croady hit the post late in that final against the Bombres?

yep eerily similar to Sic thinking about it

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Port MADE it personal. that's the whole point whatever intention or light hearted banter was intended.

'see you in 14 days' in ports language is they think we are no good, weak easy beats.

you don't give any club especially port any ammo.

if I'm a port player that message is burning through my mind all game. every contest every 50-50 ball. it was clear as day to see during the match.

And yet, despite all that powerful "motivation", they only won because Sicily hit the post.

 

[toomanysquibs]

They are good side . They've played consistent finals and are hardened to that type of game .
They didn't drag us down and tbh that's disrespectful to both sides to say that..

Agree that they are a good side who are steeled for finals, albeit after one of the worst off weeks we've seen in a finals series in this current era.

But we were sub par by our own standards, and never got our game going.

The stats show it. Contested ball, ground ball gets etc. we were down.

We didn't take what was there often when transitioning forward. We pushed too hard like we did against the dogs in the first quarter last week. Only this time there was no switch up.

Easy kicks were ignored, and we bit off too much. The pressure ramped up each time we did that, and the response was to try and do it again.

We often didn't take what was there and chose to force things - whether that be choosing a long kick from Weddle instead of looking for the perfect play on a line breaking run; or taking easy hit ups coming through the middle on transition, continually looking to break tackles instead of just taking territory etc.

We couldn't buy a mark around the ground at times.

Port played a suffocating pressure game that our style is designed to defeat – and they had an inferior team to the one they rolled out against us in our last quarter fade out.

We didn't produce anywhere near the footy we did at times in that game, against a lesser team. Finals are different, but we showed last week what we can do to overcome the tighter windows of time and options for our players.

I'd bet to an individual almost, that our guys would have felt that they did not put in their best performance of the year both as individuals, or collectively against a side they'd feel they should have beaten.

 

[The Golden Glenferrie]

Saw a couple of boys at the shops and it was tough to not go up to them and say we'll smash those campaigners next year!

 

[hawkinoz]

Scrimma is a legend

 

[Elhawko]

I imagine this week Hinkley will pin Grundy's tweet to Ginnivan as "motivation" for this week.

Seriously, it was a knockout final. If Port Adelaide needed this tripe as "motivation" then they are a ridiculously soft outfit. I wonder if Kenny would have left it on the board had Sicily kicked that goal.

I made the mistake of switching on the TV for 5 minutes this morning, and they were treating it as crime of the century.

Hi All! I'd taken a break from BF for a while, the constant bickering and point-scoring is something I realised I can live without quite happily! But this season has been so exciting that I find myself needing to express my views on various issues just to help myself process everything that has happened over the last 20 weeks, and so here I am again.

Re this Ginnivan controversy, my thoughts are these; did it cost us the game? Nope. Did it help us at all? Also nope. Do I hope he stops doing similar things? Absolutely, if only because this ridiculous issue has allowed us to be distracted from what has been a fantastic year and has somehow detracted from a great campaign by our boys. For those who do think it cost us the semi, i guess I'd ask do you also think that had a Cats player posted the week before that they were looking forward to a week off that that would have made a difference in that game? I highly doubt it personally. Port were dreadful last week and they took that out on us on Friday. Credit to them for that.

I think there should be more celebrating here for the effort that our team put in. We lost by three points! For a so-called 'Hollywood' team, our boys toughed out a high-pressure match when they struggled to play their natural game and they very nearly won it. Port have been a top-four team for a few years now and they are a tough opponent particularly at home, but even so we hung on after the initial onslaught and actually won the last three quarters. There is a depth of character in this group that I think people overlook, dazzled by the razzamataz game style that we display when we have the game on our terms. We had two goals gifted us, but the rub of the green generally went their way I thought, and I think if we had played that match at a neutral venue we quite possibly would have come out on top. I hate that the Ginni thing is detracting from that.

Coming into this game, I thought it was the last match we might reasonably be able to win this year. I thought that the chances of two 19-year olds providing another 7 goals this week was slim, and that their contributions in the following matches should we get through were increasingly likely to taper off, if only because of fatique. On any given day I think we could beat anyone, but over a long campaign of cut-throat matches i reckoned the kids would eventually wilt and that for us to keep winning after Friday would be getting into miracle territory. We left ourselves too much to do after our awful start to 2024. I thought that to beat Port we would need Breust and Gunners to hit the scoreboard but a little worringly given they are going on next year, they only managed 10 possessions and two goals between them across the two finals.

Still, as finals losses go, this is the loss you want to have! Much better to walk off having narrowly lost, smouldering with regrets and what-ifs and knowing you are good enough if you just improve on this or that aspect next year, than to have been thrashed or to have been overrun like the poor folks from GWS. We will take no psychological scars from this game.

I just wish we could take more time here to appreciate what we achieved and stop obsessing over the Ginnivan issue. I'd much rather we were talking about Newk, Scrim or the Wizard and the things that are going to matter next year, rather than soon-to-be-forgotten little controversy.

Isn't it nice to be back?!!

 

[QuietB]

I find this way more offensive than anything Hinkley said or did. Hawthorn supporters don’t support Geelong. Ever. My entire mission now for the remainder of the season is to formulate an outcome where they lose.

When they play Essendon we do

 

[QuietB]

The report in the Fairfax media this afternoon:

Hawthorn forward Jack Ginnivan told club leaders this week he regretted making the social media post that sparked the war of words between Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley and Hawks captain James Sicily, as the AFL demanded an explanation for the confrontation.

Makes sense. Pretty much everyone came out of this with egg on their face.

Feel sorry for Punky as the amount of negative attention this attracted for his 300th is massive. When you think about the positive hullabaloo about Dusty’s milestone….and then compare it to Luke, it’s quite sad TBH.

He deserved a lot better, from everyone.

Punky would be happy - last thing he wants is the spotlight

 

[Fleabane]

Hi All! I'd taken a break from BF for a while, the constant bickering and point-scoring is something I realised I can live without quite happily! But this season has been so exciting that I find myself needing to express my views on various issues just to help myself process everything that has happened over the last 20 weeks, and so here I am again.

Re this Ginnivan controversy, my thoughts are these; did it cost us the game? Nope. Did it help us at all? Also nope. Do I hope he stops doing similar things? Absolutely, if only because this ridiculous issue has allowed us to be distracted from what has been a fantastic year and has somehow detracted from a great campaign by our boys. For those who do think it cost us the semi, i guess I'd ask do you also think that had a Cats player posted the week before that they were looking forward to a week off that that would have made a difference in that game? I highly doubt it personally. Port were dreadful last week and they took that out on us on Friday. Credit to them for that.

I think there should be more celebrating here for the effort that our team put in. We lost by three points! For a so-called 'Hollywood' team, our boys toughed out a high-pressure match when they struggled to play their natural game and they very nearly won it. Port have been a top-four team for a few years now and they are a tough opponent particularly at home, but even so we hung on after the initial onslaught and actually won the last three quarters. There is a depth of character in this group that I think people overlook, dazzled by the razzamataz game style that we display when we have the game on our terms. We had two goals gifted us, but the rub of the green generally went their way I thought, and I think if we had played that match at a neutral venue we quite possibly would have come out on top. I hate that the Ginni thing is detracting from that.

Coming into this game, I thought it was the last match we might reasonably be able to win this year. I thought that the chances of two 19-year olds providing another 7 goals this week was slim, and that their contributions in the following matches should we get through were increasingly likely to taper off, if only because of fatique. On any given day I think we could beat anyone, but over a long campaign of cut-throat matches i reckoned the kids would eventually wilt and that for us to keep winning after Friday would be getting into miracle territory. We left ourselves too much to do after our awful start to 2024. I thought that to beat Port we would need Breust and Gunners to hit the scoreboard but a little worringly given they are going on next year, they only managed 10 possessions and two goals between them across the two finals.

Still, as finals losses go, this is the loss you want to have! Much better to walk off having narrowly lost, smouldering with regrets and what-ifs and knowing you are good enough if you just improve on this or that aspect next year, than to have been thrashed or to have been overrun like the poor folks from GWS. We will take no psychological scars from this game.

I just wish we could take more time here to appreciate what we achieved and stop obsessing over the Ginnivan issue. I'd much rather we were talking about Newk, Scrim or the Wizard and the things that are going to matter next year, rather than soon-to-be-forgotten little controversy.

Isn't it nice to be back?!!

You've just written a whole heap of the things I've been thinking about since Friday - pretty much agree with every paragraph. Thank you! Now I'm off to take a break too. Love my Hawks and BF (too much!) but need to get some other things done.

 

[Delecate Des]

So, if port win the flag.


Does Ginni take the credit???

 

[QuietB]

Truth of the matter was we didn’t play well enough. We played Port’s game for most of the night, rather than ours. That 5 word post had nothing to do with our loss. Quite simply we were out played.

Hawks got beaten by the narrow ground. That is all.

Hawks have dominated the back half of the season running teams off their feet. And that is much easier to stop on a narrow ground. And Port did stop it.

Hawks lost 4 games since round 6 - 3 of them on a narrow ground - 2 in Adelaide and one in Geelong.

So there are two things Hawthorn need to do;

1/ have a plan for narrow grounds. I think the two new marking defenders will help - our current mosquito fleet cannot compete in a down the line game.

2/ Set the season up better so you don’t end up playing finals on grounds that don’t suit you.

Full credit to Port, they played man on man and cut off the switch all night. Hawks still nearly won.

 

[sirhakwer]

What a fantastic season. Not one of us thought we'd be, especially after the 100 point thrashings, disappointed at just missing out on a spot on the prelim.

Port played our gamestyle better than we did. They came prepared and shutdown our handball options with immense pressure on the ball carrier and also receivers.

Having said that, we could have, and still should have one. And that is a compliment to the team. We did not play well at all, but almost got there.

And given our age profile, immensely proud of what they have achieved.

Ginni will learn from his mistakes and the team will be strengthened with some quality additions next year. Already looking forward it.

In Sam we trust!

 

[smish]

Time for Port to enjoy a day at the G against us. Time for a big contingent of Hawks fans at our house to thank Kenny for the hospitality he showed yesterday

If he’s still there. Lol.

 

[Paul Kersey]

If you’re still dwelling on it just simplify it - Hawthorn weren’t good enough for long enough. No shame in losing like that. They fought to the end after Port got away early in the last. They’ll take a lot from that game. All the what ifs in the world won’t change the result. Killer season none of us expected.

 

[Hawkk]

If he’s still there. Lol.

Port Adelaide’s wet dream would be a sacking next Monday, so we’ll be facing Josh Carr

 

[Paul Kersey]

As for Hinkley - as much as I didn’t like Breust’s moment being hijacked like that let’s run with ‘never complain, never explain’. It can be sorted out on field.

 

[Bedi]

bullshit Scrimshaw wasn't paid push in the back there in the last quarter. Clearly infringed and cost us a goal

 

[seysearles]

a harder fixture

This is a good point which just dawned on me. They split the teams into groups of 6 to decide who your double up matches are against which means we will double up with other top 6 teams next season. Good for box office but also it will be tougher to get wins.

 

[Bumpswithagrin]

I have to admit I was a bit worried when I saw how excited the boys were after they won that first final. I reckon the teams that just do a little fist pump and put the mouth guard in the sock and walk off calmly are most likely to win the next week, i.e. a mindset of 'that was good but the job's not done yet'.

However... who could deny this young team enjoying the exhilaration of their first finals win? Not me. All the excitement from our win last week could have made them lose focus a bit and think they had mastered this finals stuff. But so be it. They will learn.

Ginni's tweet was a bit cocky but if we'd won no-one would care. Still he has to cop the backlash now that we've lost and I'm sure he will, if you dish it out you've got to take it. Hinkley's reaction was OTT and petty but these things happen in the heat of the moment. Good on Sis and Mitch having Ginni's back. That's what you want from your captain and coach.

I think Hinkley should not have said what he did because coaches aren't supposed to approach oppo players but the argument that he is nearly 60 and Ginni is only 21 doesn't wash for me. Ginni is an adult and has to operate in an adult world. What if the coach had been Sam's age and the player in his 30s, would it have been alright then?

The worst part about it for me was that it detracted from celebrating Punky's 300th (another reason Hinkley should have thought twice) but otherwise a bit of a storm in a teacup for mine. On the one hand we criticise the players and coaches for being robotic and predictable, "Do you think you can make finals?', "We're just taking it one week at a time", and when they break out of this mold (presumptuous tweet followed by a reaction) some people (mainly media) are suddenly horrified.

 

[hk89]

Just had an interesting thought. After being pipped in an epic prelim at G by the Hawks a decade ago, Port were flag favorites with the bookies going into 2015 with an overwhelming "this Power side will be around the mark for a long time" feel. We missed finals. Will be interesting to see how the Hawks go with some legitimate expectations going into 2025. I get the feeling with Sam Mitchell at the helm you are pretty well placed to not get ahead of yourselves.

Yes, that is certainly a concern. Not many expected us to play finals this year, and even less so after the 0-5 start. There was effectively zero 'expectation of high performance' pressure, probably right up until you guys knocked us out. There was other sources of pressure though. Underperformance pressure would have been high after 0-5. While we were probably not expected to play finals by most, we were expected to improve, and it looked like we'd taken a big step backwards after our start. That would have generated a lot of pressure on both the players and the coach. There was also 'can we play finals' pressure for a long time. When it became apparent we had actually improved, but just had a poor start (a relatively hard starting draw I think given where we finished last year), we needed to win the vast majority of our remaining games to make finals, so the team was essentially playing elimination-like finals for a long period of time (at least from the Hawthorn player's point of view, opposition wouldn't have been applying finals level pressure in most cases).

The fact that Sam seemed to have managed the multiple pressures sources really well up until the Port final says to me he knows how to manage the group in this regard, so I think he'll do ok managing expectation pressure next year, which will definitely be higher. Hopefully we have a decent start, and avoid some of the self inflicted pressure we put ourselves under early this season. I think we handled finals pressure well for a group that had the least experience in finals of any of the top 8 teams. I don't think we lost to Port because of failing under the general pressure of playing finals, I think Port brought a level of pressure any team would have struggled to overcome. A bit more experience with how to handle those situations would have helped perhaps, and we didn't handle a similar situation against Geelong earlier in the season, but at least this time we got very close to winning against a team playing at home fired up by their 80+ point humiliation at home the week before, and some faux outrage created by their geriatric-tourette-suffering coach.

We could well fall back down for another year. My main concern is not expectation, but rather continuing the group cohesion that was clearly driving our revival this season. That type of all-in culture buy-in isn't guaranteed to continue - Melbourne were probably a relatively cohesive club at some point. However we've got a lot of players not yet in their prime age wise (and not many key contributors about to drop out at the top end of the age curve). As more of the kids shift into that 'prime age' bracket, we should get some natural improvement without even considering incoming players like Battle and (hopefully) Barras. I think we can probably cover expectation and a somewhat rockier internal dynamic.

So I'd be surprised if we don't make finals next year, but yeah, nothing is set in stone.

 

[King_Tredrea]

Actions speak louder than words. You guys played much better this week, and we had the most fumbles and unforced errors in a game this season. That speaks loudest.

Yet you still only won by 3 points, but you're coach and captained carried on like they'd smashed us.

You can say my post in nonsensical but because of your clubs carry on after the game had finished, I'm predicting 60+ margin victory next time we play Port. This will happen. You can say I'm getting ahead of myself. You won't come back and reply.

When did I at any point endorse my clubs carry on after the game? I think you will find I was more annoyed with it than you are, and that you obviously have no idea what my position on the matter is.

 

[Hawkk]

This is a good point which just dawned on me. They split the teams into groups of 6 to decide who your double up matches are against which means we will double up with other top 6 teams next season. Good for box office but also it will be tougher to get wins.

In fairness last year’s top 6 included Collingwood (missed finals), Brisbane, GWS, Carlton, Melbourne (missed finals), Port Adelaide.

Even though we finished bottom 3 we still ended up with double ups against Collingwood and GWS. How many will get next year?

Probably Geelong (Easter Monday plus massive MCG crowds), Port Adelaide and Brisbane? (the Lions have asked to host us at the GABBA)

We’ll probably get Collingwood and one of Carlton and Essendon in the middle group and one of the bottom 6 (Richmond?)