Australian Football

Match Report

Hawthorn is the premier team of 2013 after it outplayed a wasteful Fremantle to win the Grand Final by 15 points. In a match that never quite reached any great height, the Hawks stamped their authority on the contest in the first half and withstood a third quarter onslaught from the Dockers, before breaking away early in the last quarter and repelling one last late Fremantle challenge.

The victory stamps Hawthorn as undoubtedly the pre-eminent team of the last five decades. The Hawks have now won 11 flags since their first Grand Final victory in 1961, at an amazing average of one premiership every five years.

On a blustery and at times wet day, Hawthorn adapted to the conditions better and earlier than Fremantle and was a derserving winner.

First Quarter

The match opened in a blaze of frenetic, tight close-in play, as has been a feature of recent Grand Finals and tackles and smothers abounded,

Jack Gunston featured in the game’s first significant moment when he was held without the ball and converted the resultant free kick into a Hawthorn goal, the first score of the match coming at the four-minute mark,

Fremantle was very much in the game for the next 15 minutes but could not convert its forward moves into anything more than a couple of behinds, one each from Hayden Ballantyne and Nick Suban, along with a shocking miss after a mark from Nat Fyfe that did not even register a score.

A pivotal moment of the quarter came after 17 minutes, when Lance Franklin cut off a miskick from Stephen Hill. Franklin’s kick for goal skewed horribly to the left, but Luke McPharlin crossed the mark as Franklin had kicked and the Hawk star made no mistake after receiving the benefit of a 50-metre penalty.

The two teams traded behinds in a tight last few minutes, and quarter time saw the Hawks with a two goal lead, 2.3 (15) to 0.3 (3).

Second Quarter

The first scoring chance of the second term came to Fremantle at the four-minute mark, when Danyle Pearce had a shot on the run from inside 50 but the wind took hold of the ball and no score was registered. To add insult to injury, the resultant rebound saw Hawthorn sweep the ball to the other end of the ground where Jack Gunston kicked his second, finishing off good work from Luke Hodge, Franklin and Cyril Rioli.

Three minutes later Rioli kicked a goal of his own after catching Lee Spurr with the ball and slotting the resultant free kick to give the Hawks a 24-point lead.

At the 12-minute mark, Fremantle at last registered its first goal in a Grand Final when Tendai Mzungu marked a pass from Fyfe, and converted from 45 metres out on an angle. The Dockers had a further opportunity three minutes later but a dribbling shot from Ryan Crowley went wide of the mark.

A pass from Luke Breust saw Gunston kick his third at the 18-munute mark, restoring a 23-point buffer for the Hawks. While the remainder of the quarter saw Fremantle very competitive, the Dockers again wasted several scoring opportunities, with skipper Matthew Pavlich and Fyfe both missing gettable shots. When the siren sounded for half time, the scoreboard saw Hawthorn 5.5 (35) lead Fremantle 1.6 (12).

Third Quarter

If the Dockers were going to have a chance of winning this Grand Final, they needed to make a move in the third term and, on cue, they did exactly that.

A free kick against Brian Lake while Pavlich attempted to mark saw Fremantle’s skipper kick a goal at the one-minute mark to cut the margin to 17 points, although Jarryd Roughead responded with a goal two minutes later after marking a Luke Breust pass.

The Dockers then made a genuine move. A long kick from Pearce to the forward pocket saw Zac Clarke gather the ball under pressure and handball over the top to Pavlich in the goal-square, who kicked Fremantle’s third goal to cut the margin to 16 points.

Pavlich was again involved at the 12-minute mark when his pass inside 50 was marked by Michael Walters, who kicked accurately from 40 metres, reducing the deficit to 10 points.

Three minutes later, a bullet-like pass from Stephen Hill landed in the arms of Chris Mayne. Mayne converted from the 50-metre arc to make it three goals in a row for the Dockers and a three-point ball game.

The Hawks responded with a couple of behind and then a goal to Roughead via a free kick. As the term entered time-on, momentum swung back Fremantle’s way, with missed shots from Hill and Michael Barlow followed by a big mark and goal to Walters to once again cut the margin to just three points.

With the game on the line, it was Gunston again who stepped up for Hawthorn, kicking a roving goal-square major at the 26-minute mark and then marking and just missing shortly before the siren sounded. At the final change, the Hawks, having wrested back the momentum, lead 8.8 (56) to 6.10 (46).

Final Quarter

With a premiership on the line, the first 15 minutes of the last term were likely to be vital, and it proved to be so, as Hawthorn dominated proceedings. A missed shot from Roughead was followed at the four-minute mark by what was arguably the match’s defining moment. After Brad Sewell honoured a fast lead from Isaac Smith, the Hawk went back and, from well outside the 50-metre arc, kicked the ball gun-barrel straight to give the Hawks a 17-point buffer.

That goal appeared to sap the Dockers’ strength, and follow-up majors to Breust and Paul Puopolo saw Hawthorn jump out to a 31-point lead halfway through the final quarter.

To their credit, the Dockers continued to fight on. In fact, they dominated proceedings to the point that they kicked the last 2.4 of the match (with goals to Pearce and Pavlich). But Fremantle needed everything to go right, and two missed gettable shots by Ballantyne ended any hope the Dockers had, with the Hawks holding on to win their 11th flag.

Jack Gunston played a dominant role in the win, kicking 4 goals to go with his 16 touches. He was just pipped for the Norm Smith Medal by ex-Bulldog Brian Lake, who in his first Grand Final repelled many Docker advances. He finished with 22 disposals and took 10 telling marks. Luke Hodge played a fine captain’s game, gathering 21 vital touches.

For the Dockers, David Mundy and Nat Fyfe (28 possessions each) played fine matches, while Ryan Crowley (15 disposals) did a good job in quelling Sam Mitchell’s influence.

The win gave Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson a deserved second premiership in his ninth year at the helm. The 2013 season was the fourth in which the Hawks have finished with a 19-3 home-and-away record (the others being 1971, 1988 and 1989), and in each of those seasons, the Brown and Gold have gone on to take the flag.

While Fremantle’s effort was gallant and their improvement under Ross Lyon undeniable, questions will continue to be asked of Ross Lyon’s game-plan in terms of winning premierships. Lyon can be considered extremely unlucky not to be a premiership coach already, with Grand Final victories at St Kilda with him at the helm being denied by a couple of cruel bounces of the ball, but the facts of Lyon’s four Grand Finals are that his teams have scored only nine, 10, seven and eight goals respectively in each.

The defensive aspect of his tactics undoubtedly give Lyon-coached teams a big chance of winning Grand Finals, but at the same time does not appear to give the team the capacity to deliver a knock-out blow to the high quality opposition his sides will inevitably face in September.

While Lyon will spend the off-season considering how to take the Dockers that one extra step, Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson can bask in premiership glory, at least for a short period, before planning Hawthorn’s 2014 premiership defence.

GOALS
Hawthorn: Gunston 4, Roughead 2, Franklin, Rioli, Smith, Breust, Hill
Fremantle: Pavlich 3, Walters 2, Mzungu, Mayne, Pearce

BEST - THE AGE
Hawthorn: Lake, Hodge, Gunston, Lewis, Birchall, Gibson
Fremantle: Mundy, Fyfe, Crowley, Barlow, Sandilands, Johnson

BEST - AFL.COM.AU
Hawthorn: Lake, Gunston, Lewis, Rioli, Hodge, Birchall
Fremantle: Mundy, Fyfe, Crowley, Johnson, Barlow

NORM SMITH MEDALLIST: Brian Lake

INJURIES
Hawthorn: Nil
Fremantle: Nil

SUBSTITUTES
Hawthorn: Jonathan Simpkin replaced Max Bailey at three-quarter-time
Fremantle: Lachie Neale replaced Zac Clarke in the fourth quarter

UMPIRES: Rosebury, Nicholls, Meredith

TELEVISION BROADCAST: Seven Network

COMMENTATORS: Bruce McAvaney, Dennis Cometti, Leigh Matthews, Tom Harley, Matthew Richardson, Tim Watson