Autopsy Round 3, 2022: Hawks go down to the Blues

[hawker79]

Wow, that was an incredible performance, blown away in the first quarter, but never ever gave up hope, to come within a whisker of beating one of the inform top teams and come back the way we did, incredible with such a young list. We could have very easily gone down by 100+ more points after that kind of start if we had given up hope and didnt fight back. Very proud of this team. We need at least one more strong key position forward and some more quality in the midfield, but the rest of the signs are really good. On another note, and regardless of this game even as i have watched alot games so far this year, honestly the umpiring never gets better. Why doesnt it? Why dont they get proper education and their performance get properly reviewed after each round? So that they actually learn and the quality of umpiring noticeably improves. Love footy, but games are so often impacted by such poor decisions from umpires and now players cant even argue it? Ok, but at least get clear and obvious decisions right, instead of having completely no idea much of the time. C'mon AFL lift your game!

 

[mknaven]

Great to see we all saw DGBs strong game, thought he was really good. Mitch Lewis was clunking them rnds 1&2 but had butter fingers today. JOM did some nice things too. That's the frustration with our midfield - plenty of stuffups mixed in with some good stuff.
Overall a great game for our boys to play in, they talk about experience, that game should hold the boys in good stead. Really pleased to see us fight back after a tough start, the Carlton pressure got to us but we turned it around. If we only play one ruck + Nash, we could run teams off their feet. Looking fwd to the weeks ahead

 

[theiaofseed]

Howe was good as the sub.

Hmmm

 

[Tassie Cryptik]

Can we clone Nash?

 

[Tassie Cryptik]

How good was that comeback? Answer: F%$cken awesome!
Young teams often fall to peaces when smashed early (see Norfs 108 pt loss to Brisbane) …but not the Hawks. Yes it was a loss but there were so many positives, though primary amongst them was that the team still believed. That trait is that premierships are made of.

I could not be more impressed with Ward and McDonald. For first year players who missed much of their best years of development due to CoViD-19 issues, they are astonishingly composed. Some of Ward’s handballs showed elite awareness and McDonald rarely puts a foot wrong (I especially loved him pushing off Walsh to get space and clear the ball from the backline… he is a serious talent with no flaws that I can see).

Nash! Before his last 3 games in 2021 I had him on a plane back to Ireland. Thank Sam-ness that he was put in the midfield in the VFL and then the AFL. His weakness in kicking is now near a non issue and his great attributes are shining… not least of which is that he is tall, strong, and can compete in the ruck when needed. At age 23… and with his rate of improvement, he could be a serious player.

But we should not forget our backline. Awesome. Was it 64 entries for Carlton for just 19 scores? And most of them in the 1st Qtr. … after that it was without Scrim. Sic, DGB, Hardwick, Frost, and Day were great while CJ could well win a Brownlow in the next few years. Remembering that no other team wanted him in his draft year… suckers!

The fwds were excellent all game. Gunna, Breust and Lewis all did their job while Moore was fantastic. How Moore gets away from his man so often is a mystery to me. They pay him no respect and he cashes in. If Docherty was on him then maybe Dylan needed to pay his defender more respect. If not, Dylan rocked.

Morrison on a wing… quality.

Our mids still have have issues: Reeves needs help… We could not take a contested mark around the ground.
I see potential but not yet AFL quality from Finn, Worps needs to clean up his disposal (lower his eyes), Titch adds value if he beats his man, JOM was only OK compared to what he is capable of producing, and Duke could not get near it early on but came good later on… he learned and adapted.

Howe was good as the sub.

I think Carlton is the 2nd best team going around and we beat them for 3 qtrs.

I said to my boy at Qtr time, we have been smashed and now will see what the Hawk players are made of.
Answer: the right stuff.

Nash doesn't have a weakness kicking, see his f50 entries as examples.

 

[extractasam]

I was more disappointed in Titch’s and Chads game

Tom Mitchell was a bit undersized for the Carlton mids but still would’ve liked to see him have a bit more of a crack.
However, how good has it been to see him not try to be that short hit up coming out of defence and really stalling us. Has an urgency to move it on really quickly by hand and appears to have his kicking license down the line taken off him. Really haven’t seen many high balls from him this year at all. I reckon takes great ability to be able to make the changes that have been embedded into his game for a long time.

O’Meara did an ok job. Cripps still has 31 but most of it was average. I think given the draft capital we gave up for him people were just hoping for a bit more offensively given what he could do in his first 3 years in the system.

 

[KermitJagger]

We don't lose that game if McEvoy plays, in fact I think we win it comfortably. What we saw on the weekend is that Reeves is a good tap ruck but he can be exploited when the ball hits the deck, and we saw that Nash is a capable pinch hitter but we're better with him playing a midfield role and not being tied up with the opposition ruckman.

McEvoy is able to go back and forward when required, and he can go into the middle to sure things up there when we need some stability. He showed in the Port game that he still has plenty left to offer and I hope that he comes back from that injury as soon as possible. The two games without him have been significantly shakier and I feel that demonstrates he's still captain for a reason.

 

[Tassie Cryptik]

To be sure, to be shore, to be Shaw.

 

[Lickmesocks]

O’Meara, Sicily and Worpel especially went for a few balls one handed which were really poor

The first qtr was ugly and the review will not be kind to a few senior players.

 

[Lickmesocks]

Agree! JOM had time to hit a target on that last advance when he hacked it to Weitering. With big money comes expectation. He gives 100%, but he's an average AFL mid. Dylan Moore has gone past Wingard, on likely one third his wage

Jom has become a real Butcher unfortunately and Chads efforts are just not good enough for long enough.

Sammy has shown Jom a lot of love by handing over the skippers badge to him. We have a giant in the middle and he has his skipper under his feet yet we seem like novices in the middle of the ground .

Chad has had 26 possessions total over 10 qtrs of footy and for a bloke on his salary needs to do a lot more. We need to find a way to get him into the game and become more dangerous .

 

[rei154]

Agree! JOM had time to hit a target on that last advance when he hacked it to Weitering. With big money comes expectation. He gives 100%, but he's an average AFL mid. Dylan Moore has gone past Wingard, on likely one third his wage

I'm going to come to JOM's defense on that one because I think you're being incredibly harsh when you consider:

• Players didn't know how long there was left on the clock
• He had received a frantic handball in space
• He had Sicily leading up towards him
• He would have been aware of the three blues players triangulating onto him when he received said frantic handball.

I'd say JOM's work with the pill when going by foot has been better this season than the last couple (apart from when he's swinging across our D50...)

 

[goldfinger]

Carlton had a younger team on the park today, but ok.

And about a billion more first round draft picks, but OK.

 

[flinchfree]

JOM is the only midfielder able to play a more selfless role and sacrifice his game for the good of the team. Mitchell and Worpel simply can't do it.

Yup. Wouldn't mind him becoming a full time tagger of the oppositions best mid for the rest of this year.

 

[A Cut Above]

Terrific effort by the boys to make up the deficiet. Won't do the kids any harm to learn the lessons from a narrow defeat either.

 

[BIGHAWK23]

Carlton had a younger team on the park today, but ok.

Rebuild #7

 

[daniel23]

Another good game by Morrison he could be our most improved player. I'm not sure how well this will go but i would almost prefer shiels in Mitchell's role , defensively it just works better for us.

 

[The hands of stone]

David King on first crack tonight said that if he could play for any club it would be Hawthorn with the way we play and the way Mitchell let’s players continue to take risks and hit the corridor.
Joey Montagna as positive as ever says the Hawks lose no admirers and that we’ll “win a lot of games this year”.

This is the sort of thing we want player managers to start talking about with their interstate clients who might be eyeing a return home to Vic for 2023 and beyond.

Hi Caleb.

Big tough 4 weeks coming up too , snag a few wins there and the fixture could really open up for us with a bit of luck

 

[Tassie Cryptik]

Top 4 after a loss.
Entitled

 

[Mississippi]

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You're missing the point entirely SYL - these stats merely distort the reality.
No one's saying he isn't an endurance runner, we all know that he is.
But he lacks speed at the contest - whether to escape with the ball or catch his man. Have a look at 2 incidents in the last quarter - your big picture stats won't help you there.

Sam Mitchell lacked pace as well but he compensated for that with extraordinary agility and that 6th sense that great footballers have.

I suspect it was Finn's lack of speed at the contest that kept him at Box Hill last year.

 

[theiaofseed]

So many transitions like this during the game and over the first 3 rounds, will make so many opposition defenses sweat, **** the no holding the ball call

 

[Sixpence]

So many transitions like this during the game and over the first 3 rounds, will make so many opposition defenses sweat, fu** the no holding the ball call Williams was caught dead.

That was hard to watch live and see us fail to register any score! The build up was great and we looked on for at least a behind.

 

[MatteeG]

Also that last effort by Sicily was absolutely piss poor, he should have just smashed into Weitering.

Have to agree here, took a couple of short steps.

 

[theiaofseed]

You're missing the point entirely SYL - these stats merely distort the reality.
No one's saying he isn't an endurance runner, we all know that he is.
But he lacks speed at the contest - whether to escape with the ball or catch his man. Have a look at 2 incidents in the last quarter - your big picture stats won't help you there.

Sam Mitchell lacked pace as well but he compensated for that with extraordinary agility and that 6th sense that great footballers have.

I suspect it was Finn's lack of speed at the contest that kept him at Box Hill last year.

I suspect it was more Clarkson unwilling to give young players a chance.

 

[PenAndPaper]

I suspect it was more Clarkson unwilling to give young players a chance.

What young players did he not give a chance last year?

 

[KermitJagger]

So many transitions like this during the game and over the first 3 rounds, will make so many opposition defenses sweat, fu** the no holding the ball call

Insane that wasn't htb against Williams. That wasn't correct disposal.