There are few things more guaranteed to shake a team out of its slumber than a good old-fashioned rev-up.
The darlings of the footy world for the better part of 12 months, Hawthorn had spent the week searching for answers with scrutiny attached to their every move, following losses to Brisbane and Collingwood as galling for the sizeable margins of defeat as they were the glaring lack of pressure and intensity the Hawks applied.
In those two weeks combined, the Hawks laid just 74 tackles.
On Thursday night against the Western Bulldogs, going in having seen their captain at last succumb to a months-long niggle and with Nick Watson likewise on the sidelines, they were, on paper, weaker than the team that was walloped by the Magpies.
The Hawks laid 82 tackles on Thursday night.
This was a victory – one, by the way, more comfortable than the 22-point margin that eventuated – built on pressure. Not only did the Hawks suffocate the Bulldogs with tackles galore, but their pressure in every facet was through the Marvel Stadium roof. Deep into the final quarter, their pressure factor for the match remained at an extraordinarily high 205 – nearly 40 points clear of their average since Round 8.
Sam Mitchell promised physicality at training following their loss to the Magpies. His team could hardly have delivered more emphatically.
From start to finish, the handball game and brute force spread from clearances that has enabled the Dogs to become the highest-scoring team from stoppages since the Hawks themselves in 2012 was shut down virtually entirely by manic brown and goal pressure.
Whether it was a fierce tackle to force another ball-up, or an intervening hand to turn the footy the Hawks’ way, a smart tap-on to a teammate or a pressured Dogs kick sailing long and high and into the waiting clutches of Josh Weddle or the eager fist of Tom Barrass, the Bulldogs barely had an uncontested kick all night.
But to put the Hawks’ victory down only to their improved intensity misses the second part of the story – the part that has made this team such a lethal force at their best since midway through last year.
The pressure started it all, of course, denying the Dogs the clean ball they crave to surge the ball into attack – but whenever the Hawks were the ones to win it, they beat them in the same way they did in last year’s elimination final: with raw, exhilarating pace.
The pace of Josh Ward, brilliant all evening as an on-baller holding his space just clear of the stoppage, fed repeatedly by Jai Newcombe’s industrious work at the coalface and spreading so rapidly as to end up with 444 metres gained.
The running power of Dylan Moore, well down on his All-Australian 2024 thus far this year but rejuvenated by the Hawks’ quick spread from contests at Marvel Stadium, running his man ragged hither and thither into open space so that teammates always had the option of using him to get out of a jam. Only Rory Lobb matched his eight marks for the night.
The sprinting of Weddle, given a licence to dash his way through the central corridor and unburdened by any Bulldogs talls to need to keep much of an eye on; no Hawk more exceptionally exposed the Dogs’ lack of pace on the spread. Just look at how many red, white and blue jumpers he burns en route to a first-quarter goal that confirmed beyond all doubt that the Hawks were out to make a statement.
Key to all of this was the Hawks’ desire to, whenever winning the ball back in defensive half, to switch at rapid pace.
It’s a style that has worked brilliantly for them in four consecutive wins over the Dogs: using the full width of the ground, they move the ball quickly, keeping the footy in perpetual motion, and look to find gaps in a team defence that looks impenetrable against lethargic ball movement but falls to pieces quickly when asked to cover more territory than a long kick down the ground.
Take the lead-up to Weddle’s first-quarter goal. Josh Battle marks at half back on the far side of the ground …
… and his immediate instinct is to begin a switch.
Already, the Hawks are on the move: Weddle is already free at centre-half back for an easy chip backwards, and he immediately has the option of a wider Harry Morrison if he chooses.
Weddle instead gives a handball to Blake Hardwick running past, and it’s two kicks before Morrison is used, Karl Amon chipping to him right on the boundary.
The footy hasn’t moved an inch closer to the Hawks’ goal, but they have achieved a complete switch in play.
Ideally, as was the case several times earlier in the quarter, Morrison would have been able to keep moving the footy forward to clear teammates further afield. This time, though, the Dogs have set up well a kick ahead of the play.
But doing that creates problems of its own: as Morrison chips back to Amon inboard, you can see in the still below that while the Dogs are covered for a kick long down the line, with Rory Lobb guarding space and Bailey Dale free at centre-half back, space has opened up right in the corridor, with the Dogs having been pulled all the way over from wing to wing and not covering a lateral kick.
That’s, of course, where the footy goes: and with Hawks sprinting in all directions to further spread the Dogs, both Laitham Vandermeer and Adam Treloar are too slow to realise they’ve left a red carpet for Weddle to charge down, with Lachie McNeil simply unable to go with him.
Pressure will likely be the key talking point behind this Hawthorn win, so radical was the increase in intensity between this week and last. But it should be noted that what the pressure allowed is for the Hawks to control the flow of the game, dictate how space outside the contest was used, and ensure the raw speed of much of their playing list was given full reign to work its magic.
The top five players on the ground for metres covered on Thursday night were all Hawks. That speaks volumes of both their work rate and the pace Mitchell has at his disposal. It’s why the Hawks look so devastating at their best.
Of course, the Dogs are a big story of their own. Yet again, they have come up against a side in contention for the top eight, and been unable to hinder their ball movement.
Against Geelong, Gold Coast and Brisbane, that yielded triple-figure scores against; the Hawks didn’t score quite that fluently, but with 58 inside 50s, it wasn’t as if they didn’t have plenty of opportunities.
It has been a consistent issue with the Bulldogs for years: very rarely are they able to curb another team’s strengths, instead relying on their own to outmuscle them.
That works fine against teams that lack their pure class around the ball, sides like Essendon, St Kilda and Port Adelaide in recent weeks who can be bullied from stoppages with little resistance. Against sides like the Hawks with aces up their sleeve good enough to match the Dogs’ key traits, it’s regularly coming up short.
There are, naturally, other, more obvious gripes to be had with Luke Beveridge’s coaching. As it was against Geelong, the Bulldogs’ lesser players seem to have unearned faith in them to hold up in key moments or positions, which comes back to bite when they prove unequal to the task.
Against the Cats, that manifested in disastrous turnover errors from the likes of Luke Cleary and James Harmes when moving the ball out of defence; against the Hawks, it was probably best encapsulated by Ryan Gardner in his first AFL game in more than 18 months, who is simply not good enough a player to be left on an island as the deepest defender as often as the Dogs did.
Gardner was simply unable to cope with Mabior Chol’s speed and follow-up work at ground level; combine that with this utterly disastrous effort as a loose man behind the ball to allow Jack Ginnivan free reign to tap it past him and walk it in for the sealing goal, and it’s easy to see why many Dogs fans have him as a clear scapegoat for their latest defeat.
There’s also the tendency for the usual suspects to dine out on Beveridge’s Bulldogs.
Jai Newcombe was best afield with 35 disposals in last year’s elimination final, had 40 and three Brownlow votes in another Hawks win back in late 2023, and seemingly had next to no work put into how to quell his dynamism at stoppages, if his ten clearances, ten score involvements and Ed Richards being some 15 metres away from him when he sharked this ball inside 50 to snap a key goal just before half time are any indication.
The comparison with the Hawks is again noteworthy: that’s two games in a row now where Marcus Bontempelli has had his colours lowered against Hawthorn, with nine clearances belying his usual brilliance in setting things up for the Dogs. Just once since 2020 has he had fewer than the two inside 50s he mustered on Thursday night.
Tom Liberatore, too, was well down, mustering just three clearances for the night as his usual knack of wresting the ball out of stoppages with lightning hands was clamped by the Hawks’ relentless pressure.
The result is that it’s impossible not to look at these two teams and not see one major contender coming off a badly needed reality check that will be better for having their lull; and one flat-track bully with the weapons to obliterate weaker teams but without the ability to stop those of stronger, more lethal rivals.
Guess which one is which.
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