View highlights: Last Time They Met - Hawks v Kangaroos

Best: Hawthorn - Mitchell, Sewell, Shiels, Suckling, Burgoyne, Franklin.
North Melbourne - Campbell, McMahon, Thompson, Ziebell, Goldstein.

Crowd: 16,820 at Aurora Stadium

A close contest all day, the result was undecided until the final minutes of the last quarter, as Hawks spearhead Lance Franklin came to the fore, booting three final quarter goals. Sam Mitchell and Brad Sewell were prominent in the midfield, and will be looking to replicate that form on Saturday.

Looking ahead

The Hawks aim to bounce back against the Kangaroos after being well beaten by the ever-improving Tigers. Uncharacteristically, the Hawks were beaten in all key performance indicators - contested possession, inside 50s and clearances in particular. Coach Alastair Clarkson flagged the battle with the Tigers as one in the midfield, and this week’s proposition is shaping as a similar prospect.

North Melbourne are the best clearance side in the competition (equal with Adelaide), averaging 41 clearances per game. It has been the natural improvement of players such as Andrew Swallow, Ryan Bastinac and Ben Cunnington that has allowed the Kangaroos to develop a midfield that feeds off their dominant ruckmen, Hamish McIntosh and Todd Goldstein.

Swallow, North Melbourne’s reigning best and fairest winner is not only a great leader on the field, but he backs up his leadership skills with an incredible ability to find the ball and think his way through traffic.

That ability, has enabled him to become the competition’s best clearance player, averaging 7.7 clearances per game, ahead of the likes of Gary Ablett and Jobe Watson. He is also among the top 10 for contested possessions, averaging 13.4 per game.

He leads his team from the front and is an important role model for his young teammates. He will likely go head-to-head with Hawks’ hard man Brad Sewell who will need to keep a close eye on the Kangaroos’ skipper.

Interestingly, despite sitting eleventh on the AFL ladder, the Kangaroos have kicked more goals than any other team in the league to date. The Kangaroos have booted 148 goals, an average of 16 over the opening nine matches. That goal tally is greater than the likes of Essendon, West Coast and Carlton who have all been touted as early season premiership fancies.

Limiting the Kangaroos’ ability to get the ball out to their runners like Daniel Wells in space will be important for the Hawks to ensure the North Melbourne forwards, like Drew Petrie aren’t given the opportunity to score. That ability will rest with the midfield, and the amount of pressure applied to the Kangaroos prime movers.

With that, the Hawks will need to get back to their pressuring best, particularly in the forward half. That forward pressure was missing against the Tigers last weekend, resulting in Trent Cotchin, Dustin Martin and Brett Deledio to find space and deliver to Jack Riewoldt who booted six goals. It will no doubt have been an area the Hawks are looking to address on Saturday.


Leon Cameron: “It’s not just their midfield, obviously their ruckman (Todd Goldstein) is up and running but they’ve also got some really good up and coming midfielders - along with (Brent) Harvey and (Daniel) Wells.

“Their ball movement and clearances are really good, they’re really highly ranked in that area. Drew Petrie is up and running now, and Aaron Black played really week last week - their forward line is in pretty good knick, they kick really big scores.”


Josh Gibson: “He’s (Andrew Swallow) a fantastic midfielder, I played with him for a few years and I know his work ethic - he works so hard. He’s one of the top midfielders and he goes about it in the right manner and plays well most weeks.”


Kirby Reid on Facebook: “It all starts in the midfield. We need good spread from the midfield. Play two talls in the forward line (Buddy, Roughy, Hale) rotating Roughy and Hale in the ruck. North Melbourne have emphasised the defensive running in their game the last two weeks, so they will try and push back hard. We have to get the ball inside our forward 50 a lot quicker and keep the ball in a lot better as we let Richmond run the ball out too easily last week.”