Micro Noises 108: Hot Hawks
It's a Hawk trick!
Hawthorn has proven itself to be one of the great sides of recent times. Is it the greatest of the modern era? Debate will rage for some time to come whenever that question is posed, with the figures sliced and diced in various ways to advance the arguments for one side over another. Is Hawthorn of 2011-2015 better than Geelong of 2007-11? Four Grand Finals and three premierships each in those periods would suggest they rank pretty evenly. What about Hawthorn of 2012-2015 versus Brisbane 2001-2004? Three premierships on the trot with a losing Grand Final thrown in for good measure. How do we separate those two eras when it comes to 'greatness'?
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The one thing the current Hawks have in their favour in claiming the upper hand over either of those other sides is that their glory period is potentially not over yet. If they were to back up and take the 2016 flag (Fourthorn?), they would have even stronger claims to the title of 'the greatest', with only Collingwood of 1927-30 as perhaps legitimate challengers. Regardless of eras, it's hard to deny that Hawthorn's record stands up as impressive no matter how you look at it. Even if one incorporates the barren years of 1925 (when the Hawks joined the league with North Melbourne and Footscray) through 1960, Hawthorn still tops the premiership table, as can be seen in the tables at right.
In the post-1925 period, Hawthorn has 13 flags, two more than Carlton and Melbourne, and three more than Essendon and Collingwood. Looking at the period since their first flag in 1961, the Hawks' dominance is far more pronounced, their 13 flags far ahead of Carlton's eight and Essendon's six premierships in that time. Of course some would say that we should focus only on the 'AFL' era, beginning in 1990 when the expanding VFL adopted its national-flavoured moniker. The Hawks still top that list with five flags, two more than Brisbane, Geelong and West Coast.
When it comes to premiership hat tricks, six sides (from five clubs) have achieved the feat, the first being the Jack Worrall-coached Carlton in 1906-08. After that came Collingwood (1927-30), still the only team to win four VFL/AFL premierships in a row, Melbourne (1939-41), Melbourne again (1955-57) and Brisbane (2001-03).
Brian the best of the 251s? Go jump in the...
Despite talk of BRIAN LAKE returning the Western Bulldogs for a farewell season after his hat trick of Hawthorn flags, it would appear that the highly talented defender prone to an occasional on-field 'mind-snap' (and therefore an appropriate anagram of BRAIN LEAK) has drawn a curtain on his AFL career. That would leave him as one of seven players to have ended with a total of 251 VFL/AFL games. The list below is a fine group and ranking them would be no easy task. Nevertheless, it could be a fun one! Feel free to weigh in with your thoughts in the Comments section below.
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One versus 100
Eddie's favourite sub-competition ended with a win to the '100s' in 2015. For the first time since 1984, we had a season without a single one-point game. Every other margin below 45 was covered, but a game won by the proverbial narrowest of margins proved too elusive in 2015. In contrast we had four matches that ended in three-figure margins, the premiership Hawks winning two of them, with Adelaide and St Kilda taking the other two, both against Essendon. So '100' takes a 4-nil win over 'One' this season, after winning 7-1 in 2014. In fact it's been a dominant era for 100-point matches since the expansion teams Gold Coast and GWS came on board. 2010 was the last year there weren't more 100-point games than one-pointers (four each in that season) and 2009 was the last season in which one-point games held sway. There were three that year against just one game over the 100-point mark.
Score Wars
We can declare 69 and 78 joint winners of this year's Score Wars race, despite neither score coming up in the Grand Final. The Hawks tallied 107, the first time that score has been seen in 2015, while the Eagles kicked 8.13, the fifth appearance of 61 for the season. Interestingly, three of those 61s were against Hawthorn, by Geelong in round one, by Adelaide in the Second Semi Final and by West Coast in Saturday.
69 and 78 came up 10 times each in 2015, two more than 85, 83 and 80. Hawthorn's last-gasp recording of 107 as a score left 139 and 124 as the only totals between 40 and 140 not seen this season.
The Bill Collins Medal - we have a winner
Hawthorn looked like making a late run for the Bill Collins Medal in the early stages of the Grand Final. The Hawks had kicked 6.0 by the three-minute mark of the second term but after reaching 9.1 ten minutes later - a 90% accuracy rate that would have equalled the most accurate performance ever - the Hawks could only add another 7.10 to finish on 16.11. That's a respectable rate of 59.26, but nowhere near 84.62, which the GWS Giants achieved in round nine against the Bulldogs with a score 11.2.
Anagrammatic postcode of the Grand Final
There's no doubting Hawthorn's premiership skipper Luke Hodge is a fine player and a great leader but, let's face it, there are those outside the club who think he's a bit of a thug. Consciously or otherwise, the Hawks did all they could to deny that accusation in the second and third quarters of the Grand Final by scoring 4.3 and 5.2, respectively. 4352 is, of course, the postcode of GEHAM, KURROWAH AND MOUNT LUKE, which happens to be an anagram of OUR DREAM HAWK MAN LUKE NO THUG.
Anagrammatic year of the week
One would have thought that a warm sun beating down on the MCG arena would have been a boon to Perth-based West Coast in the Grand Final, but the opposite turned out to be the case. As the temperature climbed to 31.3 the Eagles were the ones who became flakier and their chances died. This was neatly reflected by the fact that West Coast was 1.5 at quarter time and 3.8 at half time. 1538 was the year of death of ELENA GLINSKAYA, REGENT OF RUSSIA, who happens to be an anagram of ARENA IS SUNNY, EAGLES GOT FLAKIER.
Ridiculous footy anagram of the week
And in other footy news, Essendon has announced John 'Woosha' Worsfold as its new coach. And while Worsfold has great credentials, the Bombers themselves will likely have more than a few issues to contend with, especially early in his reign, not least the not-yet-to-be-put-to-bed ASADA/WADA saga. So it seems quite fitting then, that ESSENDON HAVE A NEW COACH - WORSFOLD is an anagram of WOOSHA-LED DONS HAVE A FEW CONCERNS.
Micro Noises is Andrew Gigacz's regular, quirky look at all things footy. The name Micro Noises is an anagram of Enrico Misso, who played one game for St Kilda in 1985. He remains the only Enrico and the only Misso to have played footy at the highest level.
Comments
Adam Cardosi 9 October 2015
Ranking the 251 club
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