It gets right on my tits when assorted hipster deadshits refer to the grand final as "going to the big dance". Like most every other footy import - "from the paint" for example - I wouldn't mind so much if the person saying it had trace elements of tongue in cheek, but as with all the other aggravating sayings, it's said po-faced and screams "How cool am I".
Anyway, the big dance: who is going to lead win? Well, no idea. Both Hawthorn and Geelong play the physical style of footy necessary to win big matches. Mark Thompson, who learned his footy under the thug Sheedy, certainly knows footy is a contact sport. That's how Geelong have been playing for the best part of two years. But Hawthorn, under the guidance of Dunstall, Dermot, Clarkson, Viney and Hardwick, all hard nuts, also know that big footy is about big blokes knocking over big blokes. It's not about sexy manoeuvers: setting up a loose man, isolating mis-matches, freeing up a transition. On the big day it's simply a case of "you stand next to him and stop him getting a kick." Naturally it follows that the team with the meaner attitude and the stronger bodies generally prevails. The biggest, baddest side almost always wins the flag.
Tomorrow, if Geelong are 100% on their game, they should win. Hawthorn's task is to knock the Cats off their game, to frustrate their ball movement. The Cats love to sweep the ball down the ground, hand-balling through congestion, but if the Cats can't overcome any counter-tactics - including Extreme Unsociable Football, or what the rest of us call "going the knuckle" - they will lose. The question is: can Hawthorn negate Geelong?
They can. Hawthorn have beaten Geelong three out of the last four
times; even in the round 17 match that Geelong won it was more a case of
Hawthorn losing rather than Geelong winning, if you get my drift. Although Geelong were missing Ablett and Ling.
The odd thing is, Hawthorn's game-plan IS about freeing up the loose man. But that is on the back of a crowded defensive set-up that the Cats' possession game may struggle to penetrate, especially with their ordinary key forwards. Hawthorn wins by stopping sides, ahem, progressing the ball down the ground, and then hitting them on the rebound. They move the ball extra-ordinarily fast into an open forward line, giving Franklin, Roughead and Williams space to work in. It was apparent from the first five minutes of the prelim that StKilda had failed to suss Hawthorn's game. Too many times the Aints gave the ball to Hawthorn, who simply strolled in for easy goals. And with all the focus on Roughead and Frankiln, Williams gave them a hiding. If the Cats turn it over going forward, they will need to put the clamps on Hawthorn's break-away runners going back the other way.
Then there's the clearances. In Mitchell, Crawford, Sewell, Lewis and Bateman, Hawthorn have the grunt to match it with Ablett, Cory, Enright, Ling, Bartel and Selwood. They won't easily be pushed off the agate. If Hawthorn can break even in the guts and grunt, they will be well placed to win on the back of their rebounds.
The person with the most to lose is Mark Thompson. Up until the opening rounds on 2007 there was a suspicion he was a bit of a dud, but it's hard to argue with the last 17 months. The Cats look great when they get their game going, swarming all over the opposition. Still, how much credit should he take for that, and for Geelong thumping Pathetic Port in last year's grand final? Geelong have a lot of very good players, it's not readily apparent how much of Thompson is in their winning ways. His instructions could have been as simple as go out, get the ball, kick goals. Not so Hawthorn. All year people have been braying about Hawthorn's style. Thompson will look like a right idiot if Geelong are beaten by a heavily hyped and talked-about tactic like Clarko's Custard.
Geelong, as the favourites and the so-called champion team, would cop a hiding in the media for losing the match that mattered. Their flag against Port would be discounted. The CH-word bandied. On the other hand, a Hawthorn loss would be excused as a part of a learning curve, as a necessary stepping-stone to future great deeds, unless they get caned.
Geelong can't afford to lose, but Hawthorn are currently $2.75 at Sportingbet, which strikes me as very good value indeed.
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