Jack Gunston’s four goals on Sunday lifted him to ninth place on Hawthorn’s all-time goals list. Gunston now has 429 goals for the club, two ahead of Dermott Brereton.

Brereton now slips to tenth place, having been sixth when he concluded his Hawthorn career, having also been passed by Lance Franklin, Jarryd Roughead and Luke Breust.

Brereton’s 427 Hawthorn goals is a higher tally than the tenth-placed player at any other club, with Essendon’s tenth the next highest with 415. Hawthorn and Essendon are the only clubs with 10 players to have reached 400 goals, with Collingwood third with nine.

In the 20 seasons from 2001 to 2020, Hawthorn won 22 of the 25 games played against Carlton, including a sequence of 14 consecutive wins from 2005 to 2016. However, the wheel has recently turned with Carlton winning the past three encounters, including by 60 points in Round 16 last season

Despite the run of success this century, Hawthorn still trails the head-to-head against Carlton by 65 to 106 after 171 games. The current deficit of 41 is at least an improvement on when it reached 57 in both 1983 and 2000.

Hawthorn has played Carlton in Round 22 three times, with these games including Lance Franklin kicking his 100^th goal for the season in a 78-point win in the final home and away game of 2008 and a much narrower victory in 2011.

Like this year, Round 22 2011 was the third last round of the season and it saw Hawthorn survive a late Carlton fightback to win by 12 points – 10.18.78 to 8.18.66. An Isaac Smith goal, after a long run down the wing, sealed the victory and confirmed Hawthorn’s position in the top four. Lance Franklin kicked four goals, while Luke Hodge and Jordan Lewis were outstanding in the midfield.

It is one of the strange quirks of Hawthorn history, given how successful the club has been, that the biggest three-quarter deficit the Hawks have overturned remains the 25-point margin obliterated by a 7.5 to 0.1 final term against Richmond in 1956.

Since then, Hawthorn has lost nine times after leading by 25 points or more at three-quarter time, last Sunday being the most recent example. These nine include holding the VFL-AFL record for being the victim of the biggest three-quarter time comeback of all time, having lost after leading by 45 points at the final change against Brisbane at the Gabba in 1995.

This Sunday, Hawthorn will be hoping to keep intact a 40-year record of winning games played on 11 August. After losing to North Melbourne on 11 August 1984, the Hawks have had five consecutive 11 August wins, including victory in an Elimination Final against Geelong in 2000, when the season was run on an earlier schedule due to the Sydney Olympics.

With a big crowd expected on Sunday, it is worth noting that the record attendance for a home and away game between the Hawks and Blues is 69,814 at the MCG in 2009, a game Hawthorn won by four points, when Brendan Fevola missed a chance to win it for Carlton.

Nine regular season games between the clubs have attracted attendances over 50,000 with six of those matches at the MCG, two at Docklands and one at Waverley.

Round 22 first appeared on the fixture in 1970 and has been contested every year since, except in the Covid-shortened 2020 season. For most of its existence, Round 22 was the final round of the home and away season, but in 1991-92, 1994, and since 2011, there have been further rounds played.

Hawthorn has a 35-18 record in the 53 games the club has played in Round 22. The Hawks were victorious in six consecutive Round 22 matches from 2010 to 2015, and then a further three up to 2021. After a loss to Richmond in 2022, the team bounced back with a narrow victory against the Western Bulldogs in Round 22 last season.

10 years ago, in Round 22 2014, Hawthorn thrilled their supporters amongst an MCG crowd of 72,216 by coming from 31 points down at half-time to defeat Geelong by 23 points – 14.10.94 to 11.5.71.

The Hawks took the lead on the three-quarter time siren with a Will Langford goal, which was the highlight of an outstanding 23-disposal and two-goal game which earned Langford the sole Brownlow vote of his career. David Hale and Jarryd Roughead both kicked three goals, with Jordan Lewis, Sam Mitchell, Ben Stratton and Josh Gibson also among the best.

40 years ago, in Round 22 1984, Hawthorn also played Geelong, winning by 69 points – 25.14.164 to 14.11.95, a defeat which allowed Fitzroy to snatch Geelong’s place in the Final Five. The Hawks flew out of the blocks, kicking 8.2 in the opening quarter, and any doubt about the eventual outcome was removed when Hawthorn won the third quarter 7.7 to 0.0. Leigh Matthews kicked seven goals and Colin Robertson four, while Rod Lester-Smith kicked an unlikely three, following his opponents up from the half back flank. The list of best players included those three, plus Richard Loveridge, Ken Judge and Russell Morris.

It was a day that was also notable for Gary Buckenara playing his first senior game of the season, after recovering from the knee injury which had put him out of action early in the previous season’s Grand Final. It also turned out to be the final game for champion full-back Kelvin Moore, who celebrated the occasion by kicking a goal. It was fortunate that he was given this game for, while at the time it was regarded as his 301^st, a subsequent revision of how state games on the same day as League games were treated meant that it became his 300^th.

Hawthorn’s great goal-kickers never managed big bags of goals against Carlton. Peter Hudson, Leigh Matthews and Jason Dunstall all had a top score of seven goals against the Blues. The best individual tallies for Hawthorn against Carlton are nine by Peter Knights in 1985, eight by Garry Young (in a losing side) in 1959 and another eight by Jarryd Roughead in 2009.

However, both Hudson and Dunstall regularly kicked large tallies of goals in Round 22. Hudson kicked 11 (1970), 10 (1971) and seven (1977), while Dunstall booted 12 (1992), 11 (1989) and 10 (1988, 1993 and 1996).