By ASHLEY BROWNE
In a prescient piece in Saturday’s Age, Rohan Connolly had it about right when he compared Hawthorn of 2009 with Essendon of 1994.
He reported on how the ‘Baby Bombers’ simply couldn’t come up the year after their stunning flag win and now the Hawks appear set to follow suit. Adelaide in 1999 is the only team since the Bombers of 1994 to fail to make the finals the year after winning the premiership.
The Hawks have lost the flint hardness that characterised their march to success last season. Injuries have also cruelled them; as of round 13, their two best defenders have played one game between them. Very few teams can recover from that, particularly the Hawks, whose entire gameplan is set around a steady back six.
So the question now is what the Hawks do from here. Mathematically, they can still make the finals and expect Alastair Clarkson to endeavour to play his best side until finals are out of the question. But the cotton wool must then come out, those who need surgery must end their season early, with a view to a full list being on the track once pre-season training starts.
Clarkson and crew must also need to consider who is not likely to figure in the next Hawthorn premiership team, whenever that may be, and to select the team accordingly. The Toy Department would like to give him a few names – Simon Taylor, Stewart Dew and Mark Williams are three – while question marks hover over Robert Campbell, Tom Murphy and Ben McGlynn.
Clarkson is a smart man and the sneaking feeling here is that he saw this season coming all along. He must have known that by the time the season started, they were starting too far back in terms of fitness and available talent on the park to give the flag a serious shake.
The time is nearly nigh for the Hawks to put their cue in the rack. But get on them now for the top four in 2010.
Oh, and by the way, Nick Natanui is a jet.
