In this bumper edition of Footy Flashbacks we look at Hawthorn’s 300 gamers, Alastair Clarkson equaling the club coaching games record, the 60th anniversary of making the Finals for the first time and previous drawn games.
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When Luke Hodge becomes the eighth individual to play 300 games for Hawthorn this Saturday, it will put the Hawks one ahead of the Bulldogs as the club with the most 300 gamers. Following behind the Hawks and Bulldogs are Essendon, North Melbourne and St Kilda all of which have had five 300 gamers.
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The first Hawthorn player to reach the 300 game milestone was Don Scott in Round 20 1981 a game which produced a narrow victory against St Kilda. This set a general pattern of wins in these major milestone games, although here is a problem with discussing the games in which players reached 300 games.
For many years, the VFL included state games played on the same day as a home and away round in players’ games tallies, but later changed this position. This affected both Leigh Matthews and Kelvin Moore both of whom, after their careers ended, had their games tallies reduced by eight and one respectively.
Both players celebrated their 300 game milestones in 1984, Matthews in Round 5 and Moore in Round 21. Records now say they officially occurred in Rounds 13 and 22 respectively. Hawthorn won both Moore’s celebrated and actual 300th but, while the Hawks won on the day Matthews’ 300th was celebrated, they lost on what history now says was the actual occasion. In Moore’s case, it was fortuitous he was given another game in Round 22, as it proved to be his last.
The Hawks also won the 300th games of Michael Tuck, Shane Crawford and Sam Mitchell (against North, Brisbane and Richmond respectively), but lost Chris Langford’s 300th against West Coast. There are also three Hawthorn players who have reached 300 games through a combination of games at Hawthorn and other clubs - Russell Greene, Paul Salmon and Shaun Burgoyne. All of them played their 300th VFL-AFL games at Hawthorn - Greene and Burgoyne in winning sides, but Salmon in s losing one.
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Alastair Clarkson will this week equal John Kennedy’s club record of coaching Hawthorn in 299 games. In his 298 games in charge to date, Clarkson has won 186, drawn two and lost 110, and won four Flags. Kennedy’s 299 games produced a very similar record of 181 wins, two draws and 115 defeats.
Clarkson would have equaled Kennedy’s record last week if not for the fact that a few years ago Kennedy’s official games coached tally had one game added. In research for the book Mud, Muscle and Blood: The Story of the 1957 Hawks it became apparent that as captain Kennedy had taken over as coach for a game against Collingwood at Glenferrie when coach Jack Hale was involved in a serious car accident on the way to the ground. It did not help Kennedy’s winning percentage as the Hawks lost the game.
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Speaking of the 1957 Hawks, it was in Round 17 1957 that they beat Essendon at Glenferrie to clinch a spot in the Finals for the first time in Hawthorn’s League history. A crowd of 31,000 packed Glenferrie to see the Hawks win 13.7.85 to 9.10.64.
Footy Flashbacks will talk more about the 60th anniversary of that memorable first Finals appearance next month, but many of the players from that 1957 team gathered for a reunion at Waverley earlier this week. It was great to see so many of them in great spirits and justifiably proud of the success the club has achieved in the sixty years since their own ground-breaking effort.
Read: Lone Hawk in R16 Team of the Week
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Last Saturday’s draw against GWS was just the 11th in Hawthorn’s 1,945 game VFL-AFL history. One interesting feature of the 11 draws is that they have tended to be against the same teams. There have been two against North Melbourne (1926 and 1985), St Kilda (1944 and 2010), South Melbourne (1956 and 1968) and Bulldogs (1996 and 1999), with single draws against only Fitzroy (1939), Geelong (1963) and GWS.
In five of Hawthorn’s 11 draws both teams have had identical scores. When there have been differences in goals and behinds, such as against GWS, Hawthorn has tended to be the less accurate team, with scores including 10.18 and 17.24 in the two draws with the Swans.
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Hawthorn’s first draw, in Round 13 1926, ended in somewhat similar fashion to last Saturday’s game. On that occasion, Hawthorn led by a point as the bell sounded to signal the end of the game. At that moment, Gerry Donnelly of North was in possession and The Age reported that “as he was running the bell tolled, but play went on, the umpire and players being ignorant of the fact”. Donnelly kicked a behind that tied the scores. It was only after the all clear was given that the umpire heard the bell and signaled full time. The failure to hear the bell cannot be put down to bias, as umpire Wilkinson had favoured Hawthorn in the free kick count 63-51, the total of 114 frees being unimaginable to modern football fans.
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The Hawks have not lost in Round 17 since 2009, having had a draw against St Kilda in 2010, a bye in 2011 and wins in the last five seasons. Overall, Hawthorn has played 89 games in Round 17 for 36 wins, one draw and 52 defeats, a deficit of 16 which is the club’s equal worst (with Round 2) for any round.
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Jason Dunstall holds the individual goal-kicking record against Geelong kicking 12 goals in Round 1 of both 1990 and 1992. Peter Hudson kicked the most goals in Round 17, a tally of 10 recorded against St Kilda, at Waverley, in 1977.
Watch: Luke Hodge's first post match interview
