A win against Geelong on Easter Monday will see Hawthorn record 12 consecutive wins for just the third time in the club’s history. The previous sequences of 12 wins were achieved in 1961 and last season.

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Despite their great modern day rivalry, this Easter Monday match will be just the fifth occasion when Hawthorn and Geelong have met in a top-of-the ladder home and away game.

The previous four meetings have resulted in two wins apiece – the Hawks winning in 1969 and 1976, and losing in 1963 and in Round 15 last season. In only one of the four instances (1963) did the two teams go on to clash in the season’s Grand Final. In the two other seasons when the Hawks and Cats did meet in the Grand Final (1989 and 2008) their only home and away meetings were as 1^st and 5^th in Round 6 1989 and 3^rd and 1^st in Round 17 2008.

This reflects a more general trend as only 7 of Hawthorn’s total of 28 top-of-the table games have been previews of the season’s Grand Final, although Hawthorn has played in the Grand Final in 14 of the 20 seasons in which it has contested a top-of-the-ladder clash. The lowest position the club has finished after playing in such a game during the season was 5^th in both 1969 and 1990.

Overall, the Hawks have won 18 and lost 10 top-of-the-ladder games, a record which includes a run of 9 consecutive victories from 1977 to 1988.

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One reader wanted to know if last Saturday night was the first occasion when Hawthorn had won a game by 99 points. The answer is that there have been several such results. In fact, the Hawks first won a game by 99 points before they won one by 100 points, beating Footscray by 99 at Waverley in 1970 before the first 100 point-plus win the following season against the same opponent. Hawthorn has even won a Final by 99 points - the 1987 Qualifying Final against Sydney at Waverley.

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Never in Hawthorn history have two such good players debuted together as when Sam Mitchell and Luke Hodge did so 12 years ago this week, in Round 5 2002. Since that game against Richmond at the MCG, both have captained the club, won six Crimmins Medals between them and played in two Premiership teams. To add to the significance of the day, 2008 Premiership ruckman Robert Campbell also debuted in the same game. In the game Hawthorn beat Richmond by 42 points, with Nick Holland and Daniel Chick each kicking 4 goals and Angelo Lekkas having the most disposals (27).

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30 years ago, in Round 5 1984, Hawthorn celebrated Leigh Matthews’ 300^th game and Michael Tuck’s 250th game in style with a 47 point win against Footscray at the Western Oval. Records now show it was actually only Matthews’ 292^nd game but, at the time, interstate games played on the same day as club games were counted in a player’s career tally and Matthews had done so eight times. 

Tuck had a particularly good game collecting 31 disposals, 3 goals and securing the 3 Brownlow votes. The other votes went to defenders David Polkinghorne and Chris Mew, while the leading goalkickers were Ken Judge and Robert Dipierdomenico who both kicked 4 goals.

This was also the first time the Hawks played against a Mick Malthouse coached team. Ten years later, in Round 5 1994, they were playing against him again, and in one of the most stunning form reversals in the club’s history, Hawthorn beat the Malthouse-coached West Coast at Subiaco.

After a win in Round 1, the 1994 Hawks had lost their next three matches to Melbourne, North Melbourne and Carlton by a combined margin of 268 points. Few gave the last-placed Hawthorn any chance of victory in a match against the high-flying Eagles in Perth.

However, the return from injury of Jason Dunstall, Chris Langford and Jason Taylor transformed the team and, after a slow start, the Hawks stunned the home crowd by taking complete control - winning 19.15.129 to 8.10.58. Dunstall kicked 5 goals and, in an amazing debut, Tim Heargreaves kicked 4. Anthony Condon (30 disposals), Darren Jarman (25) and Paul Cooper (23) led a dominant midfield.

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Hawthorn has played Geelong 153 times, winning 68, losing 84 and playing one draw in 1963. Both club’s longest winning run against the other is 11, with the Hawks establishing their best sequence from 1985 to 1990, while Geelong’s was from 2009 to 2013.

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Hawthorn has played 88 games in Round 5 for 38 wins and 50 losses (having a bye in 1993).  Last season’s narrow Round 5 win against North Melbourne ended a run of losses in the round to North Melbourne (2010), Geelong (2011) and Sydney (2012).

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In Round 5 1969 Peter Hudson kicked a club record 16 goals against Melbourne at Glenferrie in 1969. It remains the record for the round and has only been beaten once in any other round, by Jason Dunstall’s 17 against Richmond in 1992. Dunstall holds the individual goal-kicking record against Geelong kicking 12 goals in Round 1 of both 1990 and 1992.