Luke Breust now needs just one goal to become the eleventh Hawthorn player to kick 300 goals for the club.

It will be appropriate if he reaches the milestone against North Melbourne because 70 years ago in 1947, it was in a home game against the Shinboners that Alec Albiston became the first Hawk to kick 300 goals. The first of his three goals for the day took Albiston to 300 and they proved crucial in a thrilling four point win for the team of which he was captain-coach. 

Breust is also in the running to be Hawthorn’s leading goalkicker for 2017, his current tally of 28 being just one goal behind Jarryd Roughead’s 29 goals. Whichever of the two ends up with the title they will be one of the lower-scoring winners of the past few decades. The lowest in the last 50 years was Nick Holland with 29 goals in 1997, followed by Daniel Chick (31 in 2002), and Nathan Thompson (36 in 2004). 

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A win against North Melbourne on Sunday will mean that Luke Hodge will finish his career with a winning record against 15 of the 17 opposition AFL clubs. 

Currently, Hodge has played in 12 wins from 24 games against the Kangaroos so a win in Launceston will put him into positive territory. 

The only clubs which Hodge does not have a winning record against are Geelong (10-16) and Port Adelaide (8-14). At the other end of the scale, Hodge’s best winning records are 14-2 versus Carlton, 7-1 against Gold Coast and 12-4 versus Melbourne. 

It is big turnaround from the early period of Hodge’s career. After 88 games in his first five seasons, he had played in just 34 wins compared to 54 defeats. Even this season, he has maintained a winning record as the three matches he has missed (versus Essendon, Gold Coast and Richmond) have all been defeats. In total, with three games to go in his illustrious career, he has played in 178 wins, 122 losses and two draws. 

Read: Hodge to enter all-time top 5 games list

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When the Hawks play North at University of Tasmania Stadium on Sunday it will be the seventh meeting of the two clubs at the venue. The previous six encounters were in a seven season period from 2006 to 2012, with the Hawks winning four and losing two. 

The first clash there in 2006 was also in Round 21 and was a particularly low-scoring affair, which Hawthorn won 7.16.58 to 4.12.36. Remarkably, North did not kick a goal after quarter time. Hawthorn had just three goal-kickers with Ben Dixon kicking three, with both Lance Franklin and Mark Williams contributing two, while Tim Clarke had the most disposals with 28.

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In 2017, Hawthorn has equaled the club record for the most 50,000-plus attendances in a home and away season. The crowd of 58,342 last Sunday took the number this season to seven, equaling the number recorded in 2012, 2014 and 2015.

Last Sunday’s crowd was also the third highest ever recorded for a game between Hawthorn and Richmond. The only larger attendances were 66,305 (2015) and 64,324 (2013). The only other attendances above 55,000 for matches between the clubs were way back in 1970 (55,740) and 1980 (57,572), both being Hawthorn records against any opponent at the time.

Speaking of attendances, in Round 21 last season Hawthorn and North attracted a crowd of over 50,000 to a home and away game for the first time when 50,657 saw the clubs play at the MCG. The record attendance for a Hawthorn-North game in Launceston is 19,114 in 2007.

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The 172 games against North Melbourne is the highest tally Hawthorn has played against any club. In those games, the Hawks have recorded 95 wins, two draws and 75 losses.

One of the most enjoyable Hawthorn victories against North Melbourne was at Waverley in 1998, a thrilling two point win - 17.12.114 to 17.10.112.  It was particularly satisfying, as it was the Hawks only win out of ten games between Rounds 8 and 17 of the 1998 season, and it was also the only win over North between 1994 and 1999.

Nick Holland and Aaron Lord each kicked four goals to be among the best players, a list which also included Paul Salmon, Shane Crawford, Brendan Krummel and Richard Taylor. Memorable moments included Jason Dunstall’s 1250^th career goal; Ben Dixon recovering from a heavy knock to put Hawthorn in front in the final term; and a Jonathan Hay smother late in the game to prevent a likely North goal.

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Since it was first contested in 1970, Round 21 has been one of the best rounds for Hawthorn, with 33 wins and only 14 defeats, including victories in 13 consecutive Round 21 matches between 1982 and 1994 and eight consecutive wins between 2006 and 2013. That most recent run was broken by a loss to Fremantle in Perth in 2014 and was followed by a defeat against Port Adelaide at Docklands in 2015. Last season in Round 21 Hawthorn beat North Melbourne at the MCG by 39 points after a brilliant 8.4 to 1.0 first quarter.

A feature of Hawthorn’s Round 21 wins is massive winning margins. In fact, five of the 27 one hundred point victories in Hawthorn history have occurred in Round 21, more than in any other round. These were in 1983 (versus Melbourne), 1986 (Geelong), 1991 (Fitzroy), 2010 (Fremantle) and 2011 (Port Adelaide). 

Read: The race for the rising star

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The big guns, Peter Hudson and Jason Dunstall, share Hawthorn’s Round 21 individual goal-kicking record, with Hudson kicking nine in 1970 and 1971, and Dunstall the same tally in 1986 and 1989. The 13 goals Lance Franklin kicked against North Melbourne in 2012 set a new record for Hawthorn against the Kangaroos, breaking the previous high of 10 kicked jointly by Alec Albiston (1940) and Jason Dunstall (1988).