Hawthorn has an excellent record in Qualifying Finals, having won nine and lost four.
The record looks even better if one excludes the different types of Qualifying Finals under the original McIntyre Eight (1994-99) which carried the risk of elimination - Hawthorn played two of them and lost both.
Overall, the Hawks’ Finals record is 41 wins and 25 defeats from 66 games.
Hawthorn has played six Finals against Geelong, losing the first two in 1963, but winning the most recent four. The four victories came in the 1989 Grand Final, 1991 Second Semi Final, 2000 Elimination Final and 2008 Grand Final.
In total, the Hawks and Cats have played 147 times, with Hawthorn winning 67 and Geelong 79, with one draw. At the MCG, the record is 9-4 in Geelong’s favour, although of course it was in the Hawks’ favour at 3-4 after the 2008 Grand Final.
As has been well-documented, the Cats have won the last six matches between the two clubs. This is the Club’s longest losing sequence against Geelong since the 1960s. From Round 18 1963 to Round 3 1967, the Hawks lost eight consecutive games against Geelong and, unlike the current sequence, many were by big margins.
The sequence of eight was actually part of a longer sequence of eleven games in which Hawthorn did not beat the Cats as before the eight losses there was a draw in Round 7 1963 and then two further defeats. The run of eight defeats is the equal record together with another from 1949 to 1953. On the other side of the ledger, Hawthorn’s longest winning run against Geelong is 11 set between 1985 and 1990.
Hawthorn has finished in the top four at the end of a home and away season for just the second time since the introduction of the Final Eight in 1994. Until now, the Hawks were one of only two clubs, the other being Fremantle, to have only featured once, but now join Melbourne and Richmond on two appearances in the 18 seasons since the Eight’s introduction. That previous solitary appearance was, of course, in 2008. Hawthorn did also finish in the post-Finals top four in 2001, when a home and away 6th became a final fourth after winning two Finals.
Hawthorn has now guaranteed that it will finish higher on the ladder than it did in the previous season for the eleventh time in the past 14 seasons. As one would expect the three exceptions all saw big falls - from fourth to tenth in 2002, from ninth to fifteenth in 2004, and from Premiers to ninth in 2009.
The resting of Grant Birchall and Shaun Burgoyne last Saturday reduced to two the number of Hawks who have played every game in 2011. The remaining ever-presents are Josh Gibson and Liam Shiels.
If Hawthorn should happen to win the flag this season with still two ever-presents, this figure of two will equal the lowest number of ever-presents in a Hawthorn Premiership team. There were just two in 1988, Paul Abbott and Tony Hall. The omens would not be good for Birchall and Burgoyne as, during the following season, 1989, both Abbott and Hall suffered season-ending injuries, thus missing out on playing in back-to-back premiership teams.
Hawthorn’s average home and away attendance in 2011 was 39,279, the fourth highest in the Club’s history, but also the lowest since 2007, as the three best attended seasons were 2010 (41,915), 2008 (41,395) and 2009 (40,550). In 2011, average home attendances were 36,363 with a figure of 48,161 at the MCG and 15,716 at Aurora Stadium.
Following up last week’s column, Hawthorn has finished third having accumulated more premiership points (72) than any previous team finishing in that position. The previous best record by third was 16 wins one draw and five losses (66 points) achieved twice - by Richmond in 1980 and Carlton in 1982. Interestingly, both these teams both went onto win the flag, two of just ten teams to have won a Premiership from third since 1897.
Hawthorn’s 18-4 record is the equal fourth best home and away season in its history only been exceeded by the 19-3 results in 1971, 1988 and 1989 and equalled by another 18-4 in 1986.
Officially, the AFL now has Coleman Medalists going back to 1955 (the year after John Coleman’s retirement) after awarding them retrospectively for the years from 1955 to 1980. After Lance Franklin’s success in 2011, Hawthorn has now won almost a quarter of them - 13 of 57. Next best is Geelong with seven, Essendon six and St Kilda five.
Paul Johnson’s first appearance for Hawthorn last Sunday was noteworthy for a number of reasons.
He was the first player to wear no. 50 in the Hawthorn Seniors since Michael Byrne did in his first eight games for the Hawks in 1982 (Byrne then shifted to no 21 for the remainder of 1982). The only other time the number has been worn in the past 50 years was by Graeme McArthur in one game in 1963.
Johnson became the first Hawk to make his debut for the Club in the final round of the home and away season since Tom Murphy in Round 22 2005 against Sydney.
One has to go back a further six years to provide the previous example which was Glen Bowyer in the final game at Waverley in 1999, while the last instance before that was Stephen Emery in 1978. Other earlier high-profile examples include John Fisher (1957), Cam McPherson (1959) and David Parkin (1961). There are also two examples of Hawthorn players making debuts in the Finals - Michael Cooke in 1975 and Dermott Brereton in 1982.
Johnson is the second Hawk whose original club was Frankston YCW, the Stonecats, the other being dual premiership player Michael McCarthy.
However, perhaps the most striking statistic Johnson’s debut threw up resulted from his joining Cameron Bruce and Kyle Cheney as ex-Melbourne players to have made debuts for the Hawks in 2011. This is the first time three players from the same other VFL-AFL club have debuted for Hawthorn in the same season since the 1920s! The last instance was when three ex-South Melbourne players - Bill Browne, Bert Sutton and Rolland Fairley - debuted for the Mayblooms in 1928. Other examples were three ex-Collingwood and Richmond players debuting in 1926, while in Hawthorn’s first VFL season in 1925, the club used four ex-Magpies and four ex-Saints.
20 years ago, when Hawthorn played Geelong in the 1991 Second Semi Final inaccurate in the first half looked like coming back to haunt the Hawks when a half time lead of 6.13 to 5.2 became a two goal deficit late in the third quarter. However, the Hawks steadied and a great Darren Jarman goal from the right forward pocket of the Freeway end of Waverley Park clinched the win. Just to make sure he followed up with a great tackle on the outer wing. Hawthorn won 13.17.95 to 13.15.93, with the best players being Platten, Condon, Gowers, Langford, Mew and Allan.
Speaking of Darren Jarman, he is the most recent Hawthorn player prior to Luke Breust to kick 30 goals in his debut AFL season. Jarman kicked 41 in 1991.
Breust’s record compares very favourably with the likes of Cyril Rioli (24 in 2008) and Lance Franklin (21 in 2005), both of whom played more games than Breust in their debut seasons. In the past 20 years, one import, Simon Minton-Connell passed 30 in his first year at HFC, kicking 31 goals in 1995.
This Friday night will be only the second time that Hawthorn has played a Friday night final in September, following the 2008 Qualifying Final, although the Club has played two previous Friday night Finals in August, in the 2000 season, which was brought forward to allow for the Sydney Olympics. Overall, the Hawks have played seven previous Finals at night (three Friday and four Saturday), winning four and losing three.
The most goals by a Hawthorn player in an early final is the eight by Michael Moncrieff in the 1978 Qualifying Final versus Collingwood, equalled by Lance Franklin’s eight against the Western Bulldogs in 2008. The individual goal-kicking record for a Hawthorn player versus Geelong is 12 by Jason Dunstall in 1990 and 1992, while Wally Culpitt kicked 10 in 1944.
