Hawthorn are already four years into their downswing. They just didn’t know they were downswing for the first two years they were swinging. Or sliding. No, make that dropping.
Like alcoholics and help, first you have to acknowledge you have a problem. In 2019 the Hawks finished ninth and figured it a blip, that they could resist the swing. Thereafter it’s been 15th, 14th and then 13th this year. Hawthorn realised their problem in 2020 but it was in the last two trade periods they have gone scorched earth about hurrying up the list overhaul.
Hawthorn have unapologetically wanted to make up for lost time and expedite the rebuild by getting rid of any player seen as a speed hump on the journey. After three years of muddling about the bottom four, what was there to lose?
Always not forever: Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O’Meara were traded last month.Credit:Getty Images
Last year they were open to trading Luke Breust to the Giants at the last moment of the trade period if it netted them an acceptable pick. It didn’t happen, but it signalled the openness of the Hawks thinking about anything and everyone on their list that flowed through into 2022.
This year they lost Ben McEvoy and Liam Shiels to retirement, delisted Tom Phillips, traded out Jaeger O’Meara and Tom Mitchell, then saw Jack Gunston lost to free agency. Only Gunston they tried to keep.
That is over 1000 games of experience gone in one summer. True Shiels and Phillips had already been transitioned out of the team but even accounting for McEvoy, Gunston, Mitchell and O’Meara that is about 800 games lost from the 13th side. Next year does not look easier.
Ironically O’Meara and Mitchell were two of the players brought in to keep Hawthorn in contention in a Geelong-style of defying football gravity.
Hawthorn’s move to jettison those whom they cannot envisage being in their next premiership is most analogous with St Kilda after their window closed in 2012 and they offloaded Brendon Goddard, Nick Dal Santo and, coincidentally, McEvoy.
St Kilda did all of that, went young and ended up with nothing to show for it. They went nowhere.
The lesson the Hawks can learn from the Saints is that going young fast does not of itself hurry up the process. It is also a lesson that might say the strategy was not wrong, just that St Kilda got it wrong.
The Saints either chose the wrong players, had the wrong coach, had the wrong culture, fitness plan, board, or footy staff? Take your pick. They got the execution wrong, but not necessarily the strategy.
Carlton, when they moved on Jarrad Waite, Eddie Betts, Lachie Henderson and Bryce Gibbs, also have similar parallels to Hawthorn. The Blues have been helped by nailing one draft when they got Curnow and McKay as well as the clutch of first-round picks they have nailed – Sam Walsh, Jacob Weitering and Patrick Cripps – that has offset their many misses at the draft table.
The Blues are yet to turn their hungry list overhaul into meaningful success but their list looks strong and the strategy sound.
A frustration for Hawthorn through the last two years is that for all the players they have either lost or looked to trade, they have not translated into multiple top-end picks. This year for all their moves they only have one first, a second and four third-round selections. That is not exactly mining the top of the draft.
Most pleasingly they picked up Cooper Stephens who had been a first-round pick (16) in 2019, so at least they have secured a first-round talent for losing Mitchell.
This was like previously picking up Jack Scrimshaw, a former top-10 pick and now a reliable regular who continues to improve.
The most disappointing miss of Hawthorn’s trade period was Jack Bowes. They went hard for the former top-10 pick, or more accurately went hard for the pick seven that was tied to taking the contract off Gold Coast’s books. They missed out to Geelong. That missed deal would have been the most significant transitional move for the Hawks of the summer.
Adding a second top-10 draft pick could have offered the real dive into the draft, on top of Stephens coming in, they needed to expedite change.
Arguably they should have thrown Bowes a godfather deal he could not refuse, given him even better terms than he was on, added a year if need be, to do all they could to outbid Geelong.
Against the exodus of other older players it was mildly surprising they would choose a 27-year-old Karl Amon as a free agent at this point in their regeneration. But he is a point of difference to the older players who have left, an outside runner with pace.
Karl Amon.Credit:Getty Images
The encouraging thing about Amon is that one of the problems of going very young is it can make the club unattractive to potential free agents and out-of-contract stars when it is clear the club will be down for a period. It was certainly a factor in Bowes’ thinking. He had been at a side down the ladder all his career and wanted to taste life at a club that wins. Whether he is in the team is another matter.
The problem for the strategy of going hard on the list to bring on change is the coach who commences and oversees the change is seldom given the time to be there when the pendulum swings back.
Think Brendon Bolton or David Teague. Scott Watters, Alan Richardson or Brett Ratten. Think David Noble. Or Mark Neeld, Ben Rutten. Or John Worsfold walking from West Coast when they were ready to start to have their impact.
Some might have been poor coaches and poor choices, some might just have been victims of impatient boards and fan bases. Clubs that are impatient with getting results and overturning their list have not then shown great patience with their football coaches and departments when the wins don’t start coming sooner than they think they should.
Mark Thompson, Damien Hardwick and Nathan Buckley all faced moments with twitchy boards who chose reviews before keeping them on and changing the assistants around them. Each man went on to enjoy improvement and success.
The lesson for Hawthorn – the board that is – and other clubs like Adelaide, is that you can try to fast-track change, but success is still a slow road.
