Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

[The Bulldogs Bite]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

While they are all the things you say, tough, aggressive and skilful, they are also one paced. I reckon our plan would be to run them off their feet and then close them down when the game turns in their favour. Same thing we did to Sydney. In fact, in terms of leg speed and age there isnt a lot of difference between Sydney's onballers and Hawthorns. Maybe the Hawks have the Swannies shaded in terms of skills by hand and foot but that's not much good to them if their opponents are 20 metres away with the ball under their arm.

Good point, I missed that one, and that's certainly an area that a couple of sides will be able to test them out on. Players like Ablett & Cooney will really stretch them. Geelong aren't super fast either though, and they dominated last year, so whilst pace is important and game breaking it's been proven to be done without. (See Sydney, too).

Their game plan is built around a clogged corridor and a flashy, inefficient forwardline (I will maintain it's more flash than substance still, even though I really rate Williams and Roughie, and Rioli's tackling is impressive). That Clarkson is from the Mark William's (the coach) school of coaching tells me that their style is more suited to home/away games than cut-throat finals.

Of course injuries will affect any side -- that's the nature of injuries -- but this is a side that will lose half its aura just by the injury of ONE person. That's not depth. (although, I will argue that Luke Hodge's injury is pretty significant. He is the other player they are least able to cover the absence of. Without him the midfield becomes just an honest, skillful one rather than a game-breaking one).

ps. averaging 9 shots a game on goal but kicking bags of behinds is very impressive, but not very effective. He will not get 9 shots on goal in many finals. Mark Williams (the forward) will kick 7 goals if he gets 9 shots on goal. Heck, if Mitch Hahn went ahead and blazed away everytime he got the ball in the forwardline he would kick 5 behinds a match.

Not sure I agree with you on their forward line being purely flashy. Franklin is, sure - but he pulls it off because he's a genuine match winner. Even in matches whereby he hasn't been dominant, he's still managed four goals. Roughead & Rioli really complete their setup though because they add something different. Roughead isn't 'silky' and 'flashy' like Franklin, but he provides contests and is a big presence with strong hands. He's fallen under the radar multiple times this year because all the attention is diverted to Buddy. Rioli as you said tackles well & feeds off the KPF's well. Williams is the small/medium forward that can do a bit of everything. The point is - your defense has to be pretty solid to cover them. Geelong has a super backline and they'll make it hard. Ours? I'm not convinced, at the moment.

I think our midfield could really damage them though. Good mix of strength & pace, and we have plenty of winners up forward. In a Hawks v Dogs game, IMO it's which backline holds out the best because both aren't the strongest in the league.

[Mantis]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

Geelong is the interesting one; they've shown some signs of weakness in the past few weeks. Sydney had their measure for three quarters, as did Brisbane, and they were lucky to escape with a victory against Fremantle. IMO it's closer than the media tends to think. Seem to either be backing Geelong or Hawthorn all the way, but along with us & Sydney, there's weaknesses to be exploited and I reckon it's just going to come down to 'on the day'.

They are missing there no 1 ruckman and there CHB. They are still the team to beat.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

If any side suffers a couple of injuries to key players, it'll effect the entire side - whether it be us, Geelong, Hawthorn or any other team.

Give credit where its due; the Hawks look super impressive.are all very good midfielders that have a combination of strength/aggression & skill. Osbo I'd argue their depth is probably better than ours, especially up forward & in the midfield. Mitchell, Hodge, Lewis, Sewell & Crawford rne, Ladson & a couple of their other players provide good back-up too. Tuck hasn't cracked too many games, but he's waiting in the wings too.

I'd say midfield depth is their problem. No-one has 2 wingmen, a centre and 2 on-ballers anymore, everyone has 14 midfielders. Their starting 5 is good but when they have a rest they can stuggle.


Their forward line is unbelievable, though, and we don't have a hope in hell of keeping them under 18 goals.

We just have to kick 19...
...and we can.

[Mantis]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

Yes, round 16 is a long way off, but if things keep going the way they have, we will have a real opportunity to knock them off their pedestal. They have to play Hawthorn the following week and it could really change the shape of the top 4 and give us a huge confidence booster going into the finals.
At the moment all the stats point to our score power being better than Geelongs. Which means they will have to take us on at OUR game.

SS was talking about Hawthorn.

[Sockeye Salmon]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

SS was talking about Hawthorn.

Yes, I was.


Geelong are only firing on 3 cylinders ATM but still managing to get the job done.

We don't play them for so long whatever's happened this year to date isn't really relevant yet.

[ledge]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

Yes, I was.


Geelong are only firing on 3 cylinders ATM but still managing to get the job done.

We don't play them for so long whatever's happened this year to date isn't really relevant yet.

A couple of games i think we have only fired on 3 cylinders and got through also, good sides find a way to win.
Hawks worry me because if they bomb it into there forward line we wont stop them,do we play the Sydney game and try and bottle it up or do we try and shoot em out?
Even if we try and bottle it up i think there forwards would still outmark us enough to keep the scoreboard ticking over.
They are a very scary side, i cannot see an obvious weakness.
Tell you the truth Hawks and Cats i dont mind if they beat us in home and away , but when finals come?
Both sides will be hard to beat once in a season let alone twice.
Let them play us in finals with that air of confidence..oh we beat them last time.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

It's only round 7. I think Geelong's performance last year has us all thinking that form is sustainable for 22 rounds plus finals, but I really do think that it was a one-off year from an exceptional team (that only started firing after Round 5, if we all remember). If another team is capable of matching that season, it would be Geelong again. Hawthorn are not doing anything that we didn't do in '97, Adelaide did in '06, and Melbourne did in '05. All these teams were pronounced champions elect in Round 10, 18 and 21 (or thereabouts) and neither of these teams actually went on to even make the GF. Like I previously mentioned, teams in form always look impressive, but there's a world of difference between being impressive and winning the whole deal. If they make the finals, the Kangaroos, Sydney and Port are all capable of beating the Hawks on their day. Not to mention two other unbeaten teams.

[westdog54]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

A couple of games i think we have only fired on 3 cylinders and got through also, good sides find a way to win.
Hawks worry me because if they bomb it into there forward line we wont stop them,do we play the Sydney game and try and bottle it up or do we try and shoot em out?
Even if we try and bottle it up i think there forwards would still outmark us enough to keep the scoreboard ticking over.
They are a very scary side, i cannot see an obvious weakness.
Tell you the truth Hawks and Cats i dont mind if they beat us in home and away , but when finals come?
Both sides will be hard to beat once in a season let alone twice.
Let them play us in finals with that air of confidence..oh we beat them last time.

Good post ledge.

The funny thing about a forward line like Hawthorn's is that its so complete, it would be nigh on impossible to effectively shut them down.

Look at Adelaide in last year's finals. They're one of the toughest, most defensive sides in the league yet they allowed Franklin 7 goals. And at the death they failed even to fill the holes to allow him the lead, despite having virtually every player on the ground in front of the ball. A lapse? Possibly, but it shows the smarts and ability Buddy has.

For mine a shoot-out looms.

[ledge]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

I remember a Jarman doing it to us 10 years ago in a final, just couldnt stop him.

[LostDoggy]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

Not sure I agree with you on their forward line being purely flashy. Franklin is, sure - but he pulls it off because he's a genuine match winner. Even in matches whereby he hasn't been dominant, he's still managed four goals. Roughead & Rioli really complete their setup though because they add something different. Roughead isn't 'silky' and 'flashy' like Franklin, but he provides contests and is a big presence with strong hands. He's fallen under the radar multiple times this year because all the attention is diverted to Buddy. Rioli as you said tackles well & feeds off the KPF's well. Williams is the small/medium forward that can do a bit of everything.

I didn't say PURELY flashy, but I still maintain it's more style than substance at the moment. Buddy is definitely a matchwinner, but only if he gets a lot of shots at it. Some other matchwinners like our own Aker only need three or four opportunities to shut a game down or turn a match. My point is that if Buddy is shut down he will have negligible impact on the game. He is the kind of player that needs to play a whole game to influence it.

Roughie is a great mark and kick, but he is thriving on the fact that so much attention is on Buddy. If Buddy gets injured (as many have pointed out) their entire forward structure falls apart because they don't really score from any other avenues -- Buddy, Roughead and Williams kicks a huge percentage of their goals on a weekly basis. This tells me that if you shut them down you don't really have to worry about the rest of the team being able to tear you apart, unlike Geelong with Ablett and Bartel and Corey who can score heavily, and the Dogs with Coons and Griff and Gilbee and Eagle and Aker who don't have to play in the forwardline to score.

-- Point is, over the stretch of a 22 week season, teams work out how to play you. Hawthorn isn't that hard to work out, just hard to shut down (so far), but teams will figure it out.

No question, we'll be better off playing tight. Hawthorn love a shoot-out.

[Sedat]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

Look at Adelaide in last year's finals. They're one of the toughest, most defensive sides in the league yet they allowed Franklin 7 goals. And at the death they failed even to fill the holes to allow him the lead, despite having virtually every player on the ground in front of the ball. A lapse? Possibly, but it shows the smarts and ability Buddy has.

They wouldn't have had to worry about clogging up the space for Franklin had Scott Thompson not gifted the ball back to Hawthorn by kicking it OOB on half-back with 20 seconds to go. Adelaide mids would have rightfully expected to retain possession for the last 20 seconds and were probably caught out of position after that errant kick as a result. Franklin kicking 6 goals and Adelaide winning would have been just what the doctor ordered for Neil Craig. Remember that Franklin kicked 6 goals against us early last season at the MCG but his side lost comfortably. What makes Hawthorn so strong this season is that they have Roughead chipping in for 3-5 a week and now Mark Williams lace out on the lead with 3-5 a week as well. Buddy only needs to turn up for half a game because the load is being shared.

[westdog54]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

They wouldn't have had to worry about clogging up the space for Franklin had Scott Thompson not gifted the ball back to Hawthorn by kicking it OOB on half-back with 20 seconds to go. Adelaide mids would have rightfully expected to retain possession for the last 20 seconds and were probably caught out of position after that errant kick as a result. Franklin kicking 6 goals and Adelaide winning would have been just what the doctor ordered for Neil Craig. Remember that Franklin kicked 6 goals against us early last season at the MCG but his side lost comfortably. What makes Hawthorn so strong this season is that they have Roughead chipping in for 3-5 a week and now Mark Williams lace out on the lead with 3-5 a week as well. Buddy only needs to turn up for half a game because the load is being shared.

They may have been caught out of position but Crawford kicked it in to another player which would have given the supposedly well drilled Adelaide unit plenty of time to form up.

Roughead and Williams may kick 3-5 a week but as far as I'm concerned its only a very weak defence/midfield that will allow that to happen. I think we're better than that.

[hujsh]

Re: Ok, now I'm starting to believe...

What of their defence?

If we break even in inside 50's we could win