This was billed as the big test.
The up-and-coming Hawks, touted by some as genuine contenders who could go all the way in 2025, faced the reigning premiers, the Brisbane Lions.
Brisbane entered Round 11 sitting second on the ladder, with Hawthorn not far behind in fourth. But after promising starts to the season, both sides were coming off recent losses.
The Lions had drawn with North Melbourne and fallen to Melbourne last week, while Hawthorn also had their colours lowered by Gold Coast in Darwin last Thursday night.
Some questioned whether the Hawks could match it with the best.
But in Chris Fagan’s 200th game as coach, his boys, who hadn’t beaten Hawthorn since 2019, stepped up in style, snapping a five-year losing streak against Hawthorn in emphatic fashion.
In front of 57,919 fans, the Lions led for most of the game, and stormed to a commanding 33-point win, with the final score being Hawthorn 8.12 (60) to Brisbane 14.9 (93).
For Hawthorn, the defeat was more than just a bad day. It exposed a glaring lack of intensity and pressure.
Normally if you’re the losing side and you’ve been trailing for most of the game, you’d want to see your team put up a fight. They should apply pressure and lay tackles on the opposition. But that wasn’t the case for the boys in brown and gold on Saturday.
“We had nine players who didn’t lay a tackle today,” a frustrated Sam Mitchell said in his blunt assessment post-game.
“The way they play is they’re very good at taking pressure off themselves. It’s a big strength of theirs.”
“Not being able to get enough pressure on them, we had chatted about it before the start of the game. We’d scouted it. We just weren’t able to get enough pressure on them at key moments in the game and the weight of numbers of that led to the loss.”
By contrast, a beaming Chris Fagan was pleased with the pressure and intensity he saw from his side.
“It was a really good team effort today. We did particularly well around the clearances and contested ball situation and that gave us lots of looks up forward.
“We tackled at 73 per cent efficiency. I thought our tackling was outstanding. They’ve been good at breaking our tackles in the past and tonight we were able to limit that.”
It was a clinical response from a Lions midfield that had underperformed in recent weeks and the premiership coach praised their efforts.
“Our midfielders are a high-quality midfield, but we lowered our colours the last couple of weeks against North Melbourne and Melbourne. But they’re a proud group and they looked to respond, and they did.
“To win clearances by 17, Hawthorn are pretty good at clearances and that’s how they’ve gotten us in the past. They’ve been able to dominate that part of the game, so it was important we were able to turn that around,” Fagan said.
Not only was Hawthorn smashed in clearances around the ground by 17, but they were also outclassed in centre clearances which the fourth-year coach acknowledged was a worrying trend, having now been exposed in that area two weeks in a row.
“Centre bounce in particular, that’s two weeks in a row we’ve been really torched in there,” Mitchell said following the loss to the Lions.
“We’ve been pretty good in that area for the last 18 months. So centre bounce is an area where we know we can be potent ourselves if we can win the ball.
“We had some significant issues around that area for now two weeks, so there’s a bit of work to do around centre bounce.”
Sitting 7 and 4, the challenge for the Hawks doesn’t get any easier with a Friday night blockbuster against ladder leader, Collingwood next week.
Coach Sam Mitchell acknowledged his side has a lot of work to do to improve.
“We didn’t have enough answers for the game they brought.”
“While we created enough chances, we just weren’t clean enough to put any pressure on them on the scoreboard.”
There were warning signs early on. The Hawks’ pressure was below par, as they were outtackled 4-16 and had a pressure factor of 165 in comparison to 184 from the Lions in the second term when the Lions kicked seven goals straight to Hawthorn’s two goals and three behinds, giving them a 23-point lead at the main break.
With only five disposals in the first half, Cam Mackenzie, who was returning from a hand injury, was subbed out at half-time and Finn Maginness was injected into the side.
While the third term was much of a goal-for-goal affair with the Hawks narrowing the margin slightly to 21 points at the final break, the Lions dominated the final quarter to win convincingly.
And then there were undisciplined acts by some of the Hawks, including captain James Sicily.
Early in the final quarter, with the Hawks less than 30 points down and the game still on the line gave away 50m penalties for umpire dissent which gifted Callum Ah Chee a goal from the goal square for the Lions and in the final minutes of the game, small forward Jack Ginnivan also gave away a 50m penalty for verbal abuse to the umpire.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom for the Hawks though.
In a side where there were many passengers, there were a few standouts.
Harry Morrison was impressive with 28 disposals and two tackles. The coach praised the 26-year-old’s efforts.
“I said to him after the game, I think it’s the best game he’s played since I’ve started coaching. He played at a level that was above everyone else. We’re looking for players who can drag people along with them and really stand up and I thought Harry was the one guy, for those watching live, would have noticed he was the guy who genuinely tried to drag some guys to the level he was playing at,” Mitchell said.
“I’m rapt for Harry that he was able to play well. The challenge for us is to get more guys playing at that level, otherwise we can’t compete with the best sides.”
Karl Amon continued his impressive form this season with the coach indicating he believes the former Port Adelaide midfielder should be in All-Australian contention, while Weddle also showed his running flair at times, although he could not make it count on the scoreboard.
Massimo D’Ambrosio also continued his precision kicking (19 disposals, 351 metres gained) while Connor Macdonald (20 possessions) kicked three crucial goals in the first half to keep the Hawks in the contest.
For the visitors, Callum Ah Chee was impressive with his four goals two, along with his 20 disposals while Dayne Zorko was in his usual formidable form, with 33 possessions, two tackles and 996 metres gained.
The Hawks have now lost to Geelong, Port Adelaide, Gold Coast and the Brisbane Lions. It’s likely that three of those four sides will play finals later this season, so the Hawks need to find their form and find it fast.
With another heavyweight clash looming next Friday night against Collingwood, the Hawks will be exploring every avenue to improve.
If this was the big test and the Hawks failed miserably on a Saturday afternoon in May, they would hope they can turn things around dramatically if the two teams meet again on a Saturday afternoon in late September.
