WESTERN BULLDOGS
1.5 6.10 12.11 16.11 (107)
HAWTHORN
3.4 7.5 8.9 12.12 (84)
GOALS: W Bulldogs: Stringer 3, Picken 3, Smith 2, Bontempelli 2, Daniel, Wood, Dunkley, Roughead, Dickson, McLean. Hawthorn: Hodge 2, Shiels 2, Hill, Rioli, Fitzpatrick, Gunston, Sicily, Breust, Puopolo, Burgoyne.
BEST: W Bulldogs: Bontempelli, Daniel, Liberatore, Macrae, Roughead, Hunter, Picken, Biggs, Dahlhaus, Smith. Hawthorn: Shiels, Birchall, Burgoyne, Gunston, Mitchell, Rioli.
UMPIRES: Donlon, Stevic, Nicholls.
CROWD: 87,823 at the MCG
All good things must come to an end. Sometime during the third quarter of this semi-final, the last straw alighted on Hawthorn's back, which has been so broad for so long, and broke it. The Hawks now are as they have not been almost in living memory, an also-ran. It will take some adjusting to, for them and for everyone else. There will be no fourth successive premiership.
"It's no good, this losing caper," said coach Alastair Clarkson. "We're not used to it at this time of year." But he was gracious enough to go first to the Bulldogs rooms to congratulate coach and former protege Luke Beveridge.
All good things also must start somewhere. For the Bulldogs, that in last week's stunning win in Perth. This victory, though less wondrous, was even more of a trembling of the earth; Beveridge said so. When they trailed by four goals mid-way through the second quarter, it seemed that it was "not yet" for the end of the Hawthorn good thing and "all in good time" for the coming of the Dogs. But if you looked and listened a little more closely, the Dogs already were barking then. "No ceilings" is one of their mottos.
This night, anticipation was so much of a player it needed its own statistic. The crowd, nearly 88,000, was the third largest in Bulldogs history. They were not all lifelong diehards, but this night, it was je suis Bulldogs, and all in red, white and blue, too. Veritably, this was a town against a team. Hawthorn should not have taken it personally; rather, they should take it as a mark of pride that so many bothered.
In Perth last week, the Bulldogs were on a good thing and so of course tried to stick to it. It was what the crowd wanted, too. But this wasn't last week, and it wasn't West Coast, and that certainty seemed to spook the Dogs at first.
They monopolised early play, but missed easy shots, and had another retroactively ruled as touched, and when the Hawks at last forced their way into the game, they kicked the first three goals. One was courtesy of a fingertip spoil by Frawley on the breaking Picken at one end that within seconds was in Gunston's hands in the goal square at the other. Another was down to a Cyril Rioli tackle.
Not only have the Hawks seen it all before, they've done it all before. The straw to which the Dogs clung was that the Hawks themselves were strangely wasteful. Clarkson would rue that.
When they gathered, they stole out to a four-goal lead. But the Dogs, inspired by the remarkable Marcus Bontempelli, were ferocious at the ball, and when at last they composed themselves, they got all four goals back. Hawthorn, trying to tag the Dogs, had laid 61 tackles to half-time and 104 for the match.
Looked at one way, it spoke of a still burning will to win. Looked at the other way, it betrayed that the Hawks' opponents had the ball and they did not, as has been the case all season. Mere detail, Clarkson often said. But it proved crucial this night.
The Dogs would have led at half-time but for a third missed by the usually deadly Tory Dickson; this was finals pressure bearing down. Momentary release, hissing like the valve on a crockpot, came in a 36-man half-time melee.
It wasn't last week for the Dogs, but it wasn't 2013 for the Hawks. Immediately after half-time, the shape of the match reversed itself. Hawthorn missed a string of shots, then the Bulldogs broke for Liam Picken to goal. It started an irresistible and scarcely imaginable run of nine in a row for the Dogs in what business would call a hostile takeover.
At a pivotal moment, Bontempelli poached a ball meant for Luke Hodge going in the other direction, and they became ships passing in the night. At another, the redoubtable Picken stood his ground as the ball and Luke Bruest arrived together, and held the mark. "Unconditional," Beveridge called Picken.
At last, at last, the Hawks could no longer deny the the march of time and the mechanics of the competition. Everything about the Dogs' footy now was as frisky as a pup, everything about the Hawks marked by weariness. Momentum will always make it look so, but the momentum was the Dogs' doing. Hawthorn this season, with its string of narrow wins, had bluffed the competition. The Dogs called it. "We've seen the Bulldogs play some good footy, but I don't think we've seen them play like they did tonight," remarked Clarkson.
As poetic justice would have it, at the heart of all the Bulldogs did was Roughead, Jordan, cousin of the invalided and acutely missed Hawk Jarryd. Four goals in a row in the postscript that was the last quarter saved Hawthorn a little face. The picture at the final siren was worth its thousand words, the exultant Bulldogs mobbing Caleb Daniel as he kicked from the goal square, the Hawks rooted to their spots all over the ground, immobile as pillars of salt. The day that had to come had arrived.
But the same might be said of the Bulldogs.
The story ‘Hawthorn v Bulldogs: The kings are dead, the princes are charming’ first appeared on The Age.
