I still call Hawthorn home

by RICK KANE

RUMOURS running rife: Croad to go! Is this a good way for Hawthorn to finish a good season?

Well, that's how I began this piece and then Hawthorn's sky fell down. I know, I know: the team is bigger than the individual, someone has to make the tough decisions, it's about the five year plan ... yap, yap, yap, yap, yap, yapfuckinyawn.

I'll try to piece together a set of random thoughts I have about the situation to (hopefully) make an articulate point or two about Hawthorn's season. Let me say at the outset that I am ambivalent about Hawthorn trading Croad. I certainly do not feel much concern for his plight, or anybody for that matter who makes a stack of cash because of their ball handling skills. You can't really accept ridiculous sums of money for working in a particular industry and then be affronted by an integral process of that industry. Any economics or sociology student would understand that principle from Capitalism 101.

So, what about them mighty Hawks. You know, one week of poor and stupid housekeeping during the trading frenzy plus a couple of embarrassing losses does not a season make. The Hawks had a ripper of a year. They showed promise in the pre-season kickabout comp and from there I don't think they let the fans down. Sure they gave us some heart attacks and reminded us that good and great are two different concepts, however they did finish third after Brisbane and the Bombers. Parkin's influence? I'm not sure, but I hope he's around for a while.

Hawthorn's finals campaign is as good an indicator of its year and what the future may hold as any. Beginning at the 15-minute mark of the first quarter in the game against Sydney, The Mighty Hawks reminded one and all that they are contenders and not pretenders. Hawthorn has a bunch of good players and when enough of them are playing with desire and intent one almost gets the whiff of greatness. By the end of the Essendon match, having scared the bombing capability outa that unit, I reckon a fan would've been entitled to break into 'This train is bound for glory'. And I did. The Hawks matched it with the best. Not just any old best, but a team some consider the best ever. Hyperbole aside, at the business end of the season 20 or so players proved their mettle.

In a perverse kind of logic, I'm glad the Hawks just missed out on a shot at the premiership cup. Our game wasn't, I think, deserving of a grand final berth. This year was the yardstick. Have we a team to compete with the elite sides? The answer, we know now, is yes. What missing out on the game played on the last Saturday in September did, is make that set of players and coaches just a little hungrier for the title. There should be no excuses now.

Which brings me back to Croad. His magnificent kick in the dying minutes of the preliminary final could well have won it for us. That it sheared the post says a bit about Hawthorn's season. It was worth Croad taking the punt because a kick like that is worth a lot more than six points. Footy scribes have pondered whether he would have been traded had the ball sailed through the high diddle diddle. But before we could get over the thrill of it all Hawthorn had parted ways with this key metaphoric inspiration.

I don't get it. If my memory serves, Hawthorn did not make any changes to the team that beat Port Adelaide in the semi final. And the team that played Essendon was very impressive. Croad definitely made a significant impression. Isn't there a saying about if it ain't broke ...? Some wag on a radio program commented that Croad was not one of Hawthorn's top eight and therefore he was a trade option. It was then pointed out (by the host Gerard Healy) that the so called top eight Hawks had taken several years or more to achieve their current status. Couldn't Hawthorn afford to nurture Croad's talent? It's a $64 000 question. Actually, potentially, it's a lot more expensive question than that. Hawthorn came within a heartbeat of playing the grand final with a team that they now have deliberately set about 'restructuring'. What they get in return is some pretty exciting young talent (a risk in itself) who they now have to nurture but for how long? And what of that top eight player list? Will they still be there as the new bloods reach the maturity needed to withstand the contest several years from now?

So Hawthorn lost two players and look likely to lose a key assistant coach, and to the team that humbled them, Fremantle. I don't want to sense anything portentous in such a spooky 'coincidence' but fans that have been given a scare or two do tend towards the bleak. It was a good season for a team that has suggested for the last couple of years that it had the goods. Will the decisions of the last few weeks build a superior team or will this slight unsettlement see some good work go to nothing? That is the question. That is always the question.

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