Hawthorn has an outstanding record on this week’s match date of May 6.

The Hawks have won their last seven games played on the date, with the most recent defeat being way back in 1967. Several of the May 6 wins were memorable, none more so than in 1989.

On May 6 1989, Hawthorn recorded one of the greatest comebacks in VFL-AFL history against Geelong, coming from 56 points down late in the second quarter to win the high-scoring by eight points - 26.15.171 to 25.13.163. The goals were shared amongst 11 players headed by Gary Buckenara (5), Dermott Brereton (5), Jason Dunstall (4) and Tony Hall (3), while Gary Ayres was at his brilliant best in the engine room.

Other memorable May 6 wins include defeating Collingwood by five points at Victoria Park in 1972 winning the first match in Launceston against Adelaide in 2001; and most recently beating Richmond by 46 points in 2016.

Both last Saturday’s debutants, Josh Weddle and Max Ramsden, played in numbers in which several other recent stars have made their debuts.

Two of Weddle’s teammates, Blake Hardwick and Ned Reeves, debuted in 37, while the number is most associated with Angelo Lekkas who played all of his 180-game career wearing number 37. In the past two decades, debutants in number 38 include Lance Franklin and James Worpel. Going further back in time, Robert Dipierdomenico also played his first game in number 38, before playing the rest of his career in number 9.

Weddle has also become the first player born on May 25 to represent Hawthorn. This still leaves 34 dates which are yet to produce a Hawthorn birthday. November is the month with the most missing birthdays with six, while January and July have the fewest with just one apiece.

Hawthorn has an outstanding record against Fremantle, leading the head-to-head 28-12. So strong is Hawthorn’s record that the current losing sequence of four against Fremantle is the longest in history. In contrast, Hawthorn has had three sequences of six consecutive wins against Fremantle. The Hawks recorded the first of these from 1998 to 2001, the second from 2011 to 2014 (including the 2013 Grand Final) and the most recent from 2015 to 2019 (including the 2015 Preliminary Final).

The Hawks currently have a 3-4 record at Optus Stadium, having won their first three games there against three different opponents – Fremantle (2018), West Coast (2019) and Carlton (2020), before losing their next four, including narrow losses by 16, 15 and 13 points in games against the Dockers there in the past three seasons.

Hawthorn is narrowly behind on the Round 8 ledger, having recorded 48 wins and 49 defeats (with a bye in 1992). The Hawks have won 10 of their last 16 matches in Round 8, with the oddity that four of the losses were against Sydney - in 2014, 2015, 2018 and 2020, the others being against West Coast in 2021 and Essendon last season. Hawthorn’s most recent Round 8 victory was against GWS at the MCG in 2019.

10 years ago, in Round 8 2013, Hawthorn thrashed GWS in Launceston by 83 points – 21.14.140 to 9.3.57. The Hawks had 13 individual goalkickers, headed by Jarryd Roughead with five and Jack Gunston three, while Sam Mitchell got the three Brownlow votes for his 35-disposal game.

40 years ago, in Round 8 1983, the Hawks bounced back from consecutive defeats to win a fiery encounter against Essendon at Princes Park by 42 points – 20.17.137 to 14.11.95. From the beginning, it was clear the Hawks were in a determined mood and Dermott Brereton took a screamer and goaled to get them going.

However, the star up forward proved to be the re-called Michael Moncrieff who kicked nine goals, ably assisted by the undisciplined performance of Essendon defender Ronnie Andrews giving away several free kicks. Andrews also flattened Leigh Matthews in the third quarter but, in typical ‘Lethal’ fashion, he pushed the trainers away and continued to rip the Bombers apart. Others in the best besides Moncrieff and Matthews, were Terry Wallace, Russell Greene, Rodney Eade and Michael Tuck.

50 years ago in Round 8 1973, Hawthorn (with a 3-4 record) journeyed to the MCG to take on a Richmond team that was 6-1 and on track to Premiership success.  A crowd of 32,613 saw the Hawks bounce out to a 19-point quarter time lead which they gradually extended to a comfortable 37-point winning margin – 16.23.119 to 10.22.82.

Hawthorn had tried several players at full forward since Peter Hudson had injured his knee in the opening round of the previous season, but they now looked to have found a handy replacement in Wayne Bevan. Playing just his sixth game, Bevan booted his second bag of five goals, taking his tally for the year to 20.

60 years ago, in Round 8 1963, a crowd of 34,900 packed the Junction Oval for the game between fifth-placed Hawthorn and fourth-placed St Kilda. They saw Hawthorn score a remarkable four-point win, despite failing to score at all in the final quarter. Not that the Saints fared much better as they could only kick 0.6 as the Hawks won 9.11.65 to 8.13.61.

Oddly, the goalless final term came after a high-scoring third quarter in which the Hawks had booted 6.1 to St Kilda’s 4.1. Another unusual aspect of Hawthorn’s win was that the team only had three goalkickers – John Peck booting five, and Ian Law and David Albiston both contributing two. Law was best-on-ground.

The big names dominate the leading goal-kickers in Round 8. Peter Hudson booted 13 in this round in 1970 (against South Melbourne), while Jason Dunstall kicked 10 in 1994 (against Brisbane).

Mark Williams holds the record for most goals by a Hawthorn player against the Dockers, kicking eight against them in Round 1 2006 in Launceston.