From Ned Reeves' career-best performance to Blake Hardwick's shutdown role on dangerous forward, here are the talking points to come out of our Round 7 match.

Reeves’ career-best performance

Off the back of an eye-catching fortnight, Reeves backed it up again producing arguably his best game of the season – and his career – on Saturday.

Against the competition’s most in-form big man in Tim English, Reeves came out on top as the better ruckman, finishing with a career-high 14 of his 43 hit-outs to advantage.

He had an even greater impact around the ground, with all three of his marks intercepts and two of them contested.

Reeves was one of three players, alongside Mitch Lewis (3) and Aaron Naughton (2), to take multiple contested marks for the match. 

In addition, he also recorded a career-high 15 disposals – 10 of which were contested – a career-high three inside 50s, five score involvements, and to top it off a team-high six tackles, which for a big man is very impressive.

Hardwick’s shutdown on Weightman

Blake Hardwick got the job done on dangerous forward Cody Weightman, keeping him to just three disposals for the match – his lowest tally since Round 15 against Hawthorn last year.

It was also the first time Weightman has been left goalless since that same round.

And in the third quarter, Hardwick was able to assert his own damage, leading disposals (10) and metres gained (218) for his side that term.

He finished with the equal-second most disposals for the game (27) alongside a game-high 12 marks and an impressive 492 metres gained.

Nashy’s job on Bont

Tagging Marcus Bontempelli for large parts, Conor Nash had a huge influence on proceedings, with a game-high 22 handballs of his 26 disposals.

In what was his 200th match, Bontempelli was quiet by his standards, held to just four touches in the opening half after Nash did a sensational shutdown job on him.

He managed 14 disposals to three quarter time, which much to Nash’s credit, was a big win for the Hawks.

Bontempelli was still a key player in the Dogs' hard-fought win, finishing with 20 disposals (below his season average of 25), six clearances and five marks.

Lewis gives Hawks forward line a facelift

The prolific Hawks forward hadn’t played since Round 20 last year, but it didn’t take him long to find his groove.

Lewis took a big mark in the goal square in the opening term to boot his first goal of the day, and followed that up with a towering grab on the wing which led to another Hawks goal on the quarter time siren.

He misfired a little in front of goal with a return of 1.4 for the day, but he was strong in the air, taking a career-best 11 marks to more than make up for his wayward kicking.

His opening half was particularly impressive, nabbing four marks inside 50 in the first half alone, and three contested grabs in promising signs for the Hawks future.

Newcombe and Worpel combine

Jai Newcombe was impressive in a losing side, recording game-highs for contested possessions (19) and clearances (9), as well as seven score involvements and booting two goals.

Newcombe continued his strong form at Marvel Stadium, having averaged 23 disposals, 10 contested possessions and 6 score involvements at the venue last year.

Newcombe’s counterpart Worpel was also sensational against the Bulldogs.

After an interrupted season last year, Worpel has found his home again in the engine room, with his eight clearances the second-most on the ground behind Newcombe.

Not only have Newcombe and Worpel been strong in attacking the footy this year, but they’ve also showed their ability to hit the scoreboard with both sitting on four goals each for the year so far.

Newcombe’s four goals is already at the half-way point of what he kicked last year (eight), while Worpel has already succeeded his 2022 tally of three.