This Friday night against Essendon, Hawthorn will be desperately trying to avoid recording the club’s 1000th loss.
The defeat prior to the bye versus Brisbane Lions was the 999th in Hawthorn’s history since joining the League in 1925, so the next defeat will be the 1000th. Hopefully, it can be delayed for as long as possible.
The Hawks currently have 977 wins (and 11 draws) so hopefully a happier milestone will be coming along soon.
Luke Breust is now within five goals of moving to ninth position on the Hawthorn career goals list. Breust currently has 378 career goals from his 196 games, just five behind Alec Albiston who kicked 383 goals in his 170-game career from 1936 to 1949.
Hawthorn takes two excellent recent records going into Friday night’s game against Essendon. The first is that the Hawks have won their last four encounters versus Essendon at Docklands and the second is having been victorious in their last seven Round 13 games.
Hawthorn has won its last four games against Essendon at Docklands. The winning margins include three big wins by 94 points (2012), 56 (2013) and 108 (2016), and one thrilling four-point win in 2014.
In the Round 2 2014 game Essendon looked on the way to victory when they took a nine-point lead at the 24-minute mark of the final term, but goals to Luke Breust and Cyril Rioli saw Hawthorn regain the lead and win 13.12.90 to 12.14.86. Shaun Burgoyne got three Brownlow votes for his outstanding 30-disposal game.
Oddly, the Hawks have a much better record in recent away games against Essendon at Docklands, rather than in away games against them at the MCG. Compared to winning the last four at Docklands, the Hawks have won just one of their last four games away to the Bombers at the MCG. However, In the same period, Hawthorn has won its four MCG home games versus Essendon.
Overall, the two clubs have played each other 162 times, with the Hawks winning 65 and losing 97. Hawthorn has won nine of the last 11 encounters, the only blemishes being the two-point defeat at the MCG in Round 2 2015, when two seconds more play would have reversed the result, and the 25-point loss in the opening round of 2017.
Hawthorn has played 92 matches in Round 13 for 43 wins, 48 defeats and one draw. The Hawks have won their past seven Round 13 games, beating Essendon (2010 and 2015), Gold Coast (2011), West Coast (2013), Carlton (2014), North Melbourne (2016) and Adelaide last season, with byes in 2012 and 2017.
Both the recent Round 13 wins against Essendon were in Hawthorn home games at the MCG, the 2015 one being a regulation 38-point win, but the 2010 encounter got saw Essendon hit the front in the last quarter before two extraordinary Lance Franklin goals help clinch a 16-point victory.
Hawthorn’s record in Round 13 in years ending in 9 is poor, with one win and eight defeats.
The only victory occurred 30 years ago, in Round 13 1989, when Hawthorn defeated the Brisbane Bears at Waverley.
Hawthorn dominated from the start building a 46-point half-time lead and cruising to a 71-point win – 15.16.106 to 4.11.35. Jason Dunstall kicked five goals, Chris Wittman four and Dermott Brereton three. The leading possession getters were Anthony Condon and Darrin Pritchard, who both had 31 disposals.
The game had originally been fixtured at the MCG but had been moved to Waverley at the start of the week due to the poor condition of the MCG surface. A Friday night crowd of just 6,292 turned up, the smallest attendance for any of Hawthorn’s 211 games at Waverley, the only other sub-10,000 crowd being 9,413 for a game against South Melbourne in 1973. As an interesting sidelight the Hawks won their 13 lowest attended games at Waverley, and their six best attended too.
Brisbane’s final score in Round 13 1989 was an improvement on its previous game in Melbourne versus the Hawks. In 1988, the Bears had kicked 2.5.17 against Hawthorn at Princes Park. Therefore, in two complete games, the Bears had kicked a total of 6.16.52. However, any smug feelings Hawthorn fans may have had were snuffed out when Brisbane won the return encounter at Carrara in Round 20.
With Round 13 anniversaries a little bleak, we will catch up on a Round 12 anniversary which we did not cover due to there not being a column in last week’s bye round.
In Round 12 1999, the Hawks supporters amongst the Waverley Park crowd of 36,381 were feeling despondent when their team trailed by 51 points at quarter-time and by 63 points early in the second quarter. Yet, in what was a new record comeback, the Hawks recovered to win the match by 13 points – 17.7.109 to 14.12.96.
The Hawks had begun their fightback with the last three goals of the second quarter, cutting the margin to 44 points, before a 10.0 to 3.1 third term had them within three points at the final change. Hawthorn then kicked the only three goals of a lower-scoring last quarter to claim victory. Nick Holland with 12 marks and five goals was a star up-forward, ably assisted by Nathan Thompson’s three goals.
The Round 13 individual goal-kicking record for Hawthorn is nine, held jointly by Peter Hudson (1971) and Jason Dunstall (1988), followed by bags of eight from Peter Knights (1972), Mike Moncrieff (1980) and Simon Minton-Connell (1995).
Dunstall also holds the club record against Essendon which is 12 in 1992. Other big bags against the Bombers were 11 by Leigh Matthews in 1973 and 10 by Michael Moncrieff in 1972.
