Please Rate Hawthorn's 2019 Season.

[Agent Smith]

Hard to judge this year as the gloss of how we finished the season tends to make the earlier crap we dished out look not so bad. Struggling to kick a ball between the two big sticks more than once a quarter is abysmal, though perhaps that's now been mitigated by the development of what now appears to be key weapons in Lewis and O'Brien. If they can improve next year then that makes this year a great development year, on top of on-ball sensations we've found in Worps and Wingard, as well as the rising guns in Impey and Scrimmers. I cross my fingers in hope.

 

[Pessimistic]

The contrast between round 23 and even the eagles game in r15 shows there was a motivation problem until something was on the line
There will probably be just 5-8 remaining premiership players remaining so its time for this new era team to make its own destiny

 

[Gralin]

He is 29, and only has about 350 I think. I reckon 450 is all he will get, MAX.

He's 28 and on 392 at the moment. He's never kicked less than 30 goals in a season. His career average is 41 a season.
If he plays for 3 more years he should break 500, given his durability he is a very good chance to break 500

 

[moginie]

I gave it a 6.

The highlight was the last 3 weeks of the season. The lowlight was the two dreadful games after the bye.

 

[Strapping Young Lad]

I must say I'm gobsmacked 40% of posters have our season at a 7 or above.

I’m not surprised by people being ok with our year.

It’s about the context of our year as a whole after losing Mitchell before the season, then a bunch of key players in the first third of the year, and yet we still almost made finals on the back of a 20yr old midfielder and some development of other juniors.

What were the expectations at that point? Bottom of the 8? A finish between 8-12?

We don’t exactly bat deep at the moment, but we sure don’t lack effort or heart.

Other clubs could well have packed it in halfway through the year(See Melbourne as an example).

 

[luciien]

Rated a 6. Played some very stodgy football for the bulk of the year, hung in games, but lacked execution. Very pleasing to see the team beginning to make some progress as the season came to a close.

Fact of the matter is that no club has wrested the mantle of dominance since the threepeat. We are not very far off being a very good side once again, much to the chagrin of the untermensch.

 

[jaitachi]

Jacob Koschitzke was drafted last year with a view to being key back so will have to watch his development.

My names Jacob hehe, thanks for letting me know about him, I haven’t heard of him before, I’ll look out for him for sure now, thanks for the info man

 

[HODGEYROAD]

I’m not surprised by people being ok with our year.

It’s about the context of our year as a whole after losing Mitchell before the season, then a bunch of key players in the first third of the year, and yet we still almost made finals on the back of a 20yr old midfielder and some development of other juniors.

What were the expectations at that point? Bottom of the 8? A finish between 8-12?

We don’t exactly bat deep at the moment, but we sure don’t lack effort or heart.

Other clubs could well have packed it in halfway through the year(See Melbourne as an example).

My expectations once Mitchell went down were about 10 wins, so yeah we pretty much sat about where I thought, that's why I rated the season a 5/10 smack bang in the middle.

 

[HawthornHawk]

I really liked the way we finished the year but just can't get past the way we played vs Melbourne, the capitulation against the dogs, and the bizarre set ups against the Bombers and Swans. We really should have played finals this year and only have ourselves to blame

 

[JD888]

Hawks largest loss this season was against Richmond by 36. Every other team in the comp had larger defeats except Geelong whose biggest loss was to Freo by 34.

 

[Leather Poisoning]

If we finished strongly and fell away we'd feel very different than if we started crap and then stormed home.

It was a disaster of a season. For half the year we couldn't put four quarters together, our senior players were all horribly out of form, opposition teams treated us with disdain and we gave up 5+ goal leads and got overrun frequently.
Losing to shit sides like Melbourne and St Kilda is hard to be okay with.

But then on the balance of things, it was a rebuild year and we managed to out-perform half the clubs in the league.

Roughy's form dropped off faster than Mitch Lewis' picked up. Gunston never got going - so for the entire season we were light on for marking power up forward. (Hence the Sicily experiment mid season). The forwardline was a mess all season. Couldn't get the balance of talls right at all.

O'Meara's start to the season was AA worthy - but he got a niggle and copped heavier tags and dropped back to being somewhere between solid and A grade. So another key role where we had a dip. Worpel's steady improvement across the season was important, but when Wingard hit the midfield we became a different team.

≈

Highllights:
* Impey - not just a role player, he's seriously good
* Scrimshaw - not just a young fella learning his craft, but a solid, actively contributor in every game
* Worpel
* Mitch Lewis' steady improvement
* Sicily and Henderson putting in (almost) AA worthy seasons
* O'Meara only missed one game!
* Scully wasn't supposed to play until mid season - we got 20+ games out of him
* Timmy O's finish to the season
* Winning against Geelong - that was awesome
* Wins against GWS x 2, West Coast and Collingwood were all great to watch .
* Roughy's farewell match was a celebration of footy greatness in the best way

Lowlights:
* Wingard's injuries in the first half of the season
* Mitchell's injury (the worst)
* The collective form of Smith, Gunston, Breust, Stratton, Smith, Puopolo.
* Stratton's pinching BS.
* Losses to Melbourne, St Kilda and North

Overall 6/10 -

 

[The Chad and I]

This season has been a vindication of the strategy drawn up by the football department to recruit mature players.
Had Mitchell played this season, we would have had 4-5 more wins and I think that should be the minimum expectation for next season.

We can reasonably expect further improvement from Wingard, Scrimshaw, Lewis along with the addition of Mitchell.
The overall squad may tread water though, with Burgoyne & Smith the only members of the starting 22 looking to move on, I think we can expect the recruitment of players with similar potential for the next season.

Guys like Petracca, Amon, Cox could conceivably fill that void in output/roles.
If we somehow manage to recruit Whitfield, then I think we will be ahead.

We have proven that if you can trade for the right elite talent, you can find the role players from a combination of sources - IF you have a sound coaching & development program to go with your targeted recruitment of listed players.

 

[Cyril says]

For hope given: 10/10 (no Mitchell,m and Impey and played that good at the end of the year)

For the highs (West Coast, Snowbowl, etc): 10/10

For effort in most games despite being in transition and not having consistency from bottom 6: 10/10

For the bad losses (St K, North, Brisbane, etc): 0/10

We weren’t and aren’t good enough yet, but I am pretty happy with the season and the hope and direction I could see at seasons end.

Overall score: 6/10

 

[Jack Gun Cyril Stun]

I’ll rate it in 1-2 years time. This year is /was about the next couple of years!

 

[KermitJagger]

No finals, 5/10, pass conceded. And only then on account of Mitchell missing the year.

My benchmark is Richmond 2008, when we rattled home to miss finals by half a game. Coach Wallace was miffed when the president rated the season a 5/10. In hindsight I'd give it a 4.

They're different seasons really. Young team with poor depth in that middle age bracket that almost scraped through off the back of some really good footy from blokes like Bowden, Brown and Richo who were all getting close to retirement and your other key guys at that time in Foley (who looked to be a jet pre injuries) and Deledio were probably a fraction too young. You still had a little while to wait before the recently drafted Rance, Riewoldt, Cotchin, Edwards and those lads were old enough to contribute in a big way.

Hawthorn, on the other hand, probably have better prospects next year due to the fact that the majority of our key guys are in that 24-28 age bracket that Richmond didn't have quite enough of.

 

[TylerDurden]

7
The way we finished said a lot. Mitchell was always gonna cost us 4-5 wins, so 11 wins was about right.

Found some great kids. Will reset the age profile of the list in the coming weeks.

This trade period is massive. Hope to see a combination of good acquisitions and ability to go to the draft. Won't be easy, but we have the best in the business managing this transition.

 

[Strigoi]

It was a rough start, but they brought it up in the end. Not an easy task. The Hawks seemed to be the team they tested new rules on - particularly Sicily. We did beat a lot of the top eight teams. Mitchell being out the entire year didn't help, either. 2020 will be better!

 

[threesixpio]

If I factor in Tom’s injury and that this was only ever going to be a development year I reckon it was really good

Huge problems at the start of the year:
- we were way too reliant on Tom in the midfield
- we had a worrying lack of height in the forward line
- the forward line just didn’t function well evidenced by very low scoring at the start of the year

Really pumped for 2020 given that
- Timmy and Lewis are playing well together and add Patton and hello
- Wingard was awesome in the second half of last year - bloody hell
- Scrimmerz and Sicily together with Frost helping both be weapons will be awesome
- Tom is back


but mainly

Goddamnit - the Worpedo has arrived

 

[philohk]

Hard to give an exact rating (I went for 6) but mixed. Once Mitchell went down we were always going to be up against it. In that context, we probably did OK. Put Mitchell in that side and I think a few of those losses become wins.

On the plus side for the list, there was the great development of Worpel and some encouraging signs from guys like Nash and Hanrahan. And in terms of game plan I think we're refining it and the team is getting there with it - the strong end to the year was encouraging. But we lost games to sides we should've beaten. I know we had in-game injuries a couple of times but so did our opposition (Sydney, and Essendon IIRC, plus WCE lost Hutchings and Impey got off the leash).

I made this after H&A, thought it might provoke some interesting discussion. 5-7 against sides in the 8 and 6-4 outside. Note Essendon's terrible record. But they beat the teams below them consistently. Also, 12 games...

Edit: updated after feedback from rogiebear93

 

[KermitJagger]

Hard to give an exact rating (I went for 6) but mixed. Once Mitchell went down we were always going to be up against it. In that context, we probably did OK. Put Mitchell in that side and I think a few of those losses become wins.

On the plus side for the list, there was the great development of Worpel and some encouraging signs from guys like Nash and Hanrahan. And in terms of game plan I think we're refining it and the team is getting there with it - the strong end to the year was encouraging. But we lost games to sides we should've beaten. I know we had in-game injuries a couple of times but so did our opposition (Sydney, and Essendon IIRC, plus WCE lost Hutchings and Impey got off the leash).

I made this after H&A, thought it might provoke some interesting discussion. 5-7 against sides in the 8 and 6-4 outside. Note Essendon's terrible record. But they beat the teams below them consistently. Also, 12 games...

I did the same but got this:

Year	Team	Played	Win	Loss	Draw	Percentage	For	Against
2019	Hawks	12	7	5	0	100.65%	923	917

I think your numbers must be a smidge wrong. There's no way we played 12 games against top 8 sides and averaged a mite over 51 points a game.

 

[Nathan Detroit]

Too early. Want to see who we trade in.

That said...

All it will take is Axe telling us how Patton, Lewis, Gunston, Timmy, Bruest and Wingard are monsters in the forwardline and how Frosty, Scrimmerz and Sicily are a stupidly good half back line and how Worps, Tom, JOM and Finn MCG are crashing through the midfield for us to all get lively for 2020

All aboard the 2020 train toot toot







I’m bored

I'm all a-bored

 

[philohk]

I did the same but got this:

Year	Team	Played	Win	Loss	Draw	Percentage	For	Against
2019	Hawks	12	7	5	0	100.65%	923	917

I think your numbers must be a smidge wrong. There's no way we played 12 games against top 8 sides and averaged a mite over 51 points a game.

Yeah, doesn't seem right, does it? I'll have another look.

 

[philohk]

I did the same but got this:

Year	Team	Played	Win	Loss	Draw	Percentage	For	Against
2019	Hawks	12	7	5	0	100.65%	923	917

I think your numbers must be a smidge wrong. There's no way we played 12 games against top 8 sides and averaged a mite over 51 points a game.

Updated - there was a formula error affecting a bunch of sides' scores. I think our overall results are right though:
vs Geelong: 1-1
vs Brisbane: 0-2
vs Richmond: 0-1
vs Collingwood: 1-0
vs WCE: 1-1
vs GWS: 2-0
vs WB: 0-1
vs Essendon: 0-1

 

[threesixpio]

Are years rated based on the short term or adhering to a long term plan?

One of my favourite threads on this board was when we retrospectively looked at list changes between 2009-2011 after the threepeat. Not saying we will threepeat again but each year I have a “I wish we could get better at x” approach.

This year, like I said above, it was our midfield and forwardline where I wanted to see improvement

Last year and the year before it was our defence.

I’m not sure what others do at the start of the year. Some must think “flag flag flag!”.

I don’t.

I also look at where we are at during the second half of the season rather than moping about the first half.

I have a sneaky feeling this would be the way that the club would look at years too. Excluding 2012, it would be uncommon for the club to think “aw shit we didn’t get a flag”.

 

[tige19]

4

How anyone can rate the HFC higher than 5 when not making the finals is a mind boggler.