Sydney premiers 2005 after 4-4 start (11-3 after)

[Pessimistic]

but it wasnt an easy road and the gf opponents, eagles, werent as hot as freo are now

Its a bit off to look for historical precedent becaus the seeded draw is only 3 years in. You could compare to 5-3 starts possbly. Geelong won the 2007 after one, winning 13-1 on the latter rounds

Sydney 2014, hawthorn 2012 and kilda 2010 finished runner up after 5-3 starts

But do we take into account it would be the fourh grand final in a row ?
Bris lions 2003 started 6-1-1. Followed by 8-6 in 2003 and became premiers, they did better in 2004 with a 5-3 start followed by 10-4 but lost out in one grand final too many

Going back to the hawks of the eighties, in 1990 they followed back to back with 5-3 followed by 9-5 but limped into the finals. In 1991 it went better with 5-3 followed by 11-3 and another stolen flag off the red hot eagles.

Considering we ARE 4-4, youd suggest an ideal follow up would be 12-2. Meaning good form and close results to fall our way.

Recent premiers to finish the season thius have been Haw 2013 and geel 2007. Runners up to achieve this are syd 2012, coll 2011, haw 2012.

I thinke we will look better in a historical context after round 10, and the five rounds after that will define our season

 

[Steven Tyler]

Opposition teams have done their homework on how to combat us in our forward line, and now use Suckling's weaknesses to their advantage (pressure his kick, no time or space, get him 1 on 1 in their forward line)
Fix these 2 glaring issues, and we fix our yo-yo season
Big test for our coaching group coming up

 

[Pessimistic]

Of course we need to find form, thats a given

Id try suckling on the bench, worth a try

 

[MightyHawks]

The worry for us is it doesn't appear we've done our homework on other sides

 

[bugalugs213]

Every opposition team is going into our games treating it like a grand final.
There will be more than a few upset losses in the next ten.

 

[Buckemenico]

We won 1991 having turned at 6-5 after 11 games.

 

[Pessimistic]

We won 1991 having turned at 6-5 after 11 games.

....beating a runaway leader on their own turf in a final too

We are your original spoilers

 

[B&GBlood]

Maybe we will have to win the first week in Perth again

 

[Bedi]

Maybe we will have to win the first week in Perth again

and smash em while we're at it.

 

[Rushed_Behind]

This is a weird year. I have no fear playing any team away in a final other than swans or Freo. The top 4 currently as it sits would mean we play either GWS or WCE away as I can't see them beating swans or Freo.

If we somehow win our first week, we should be able to get over either team and a prelim is a different ball game as we know over the last 4 years.

 

[walhawk]

Thank god we have Carlton in the last round. We can rest as many as needed before a likely interstate final.
I did the Ladder Predictor rather optimistically and had us third
We can beat the Swans @ ANZ so that is our best chance in week 1 or 3 to make the GF.

 

[Pessimistic]

Webjet currently showing $110 each way for qf weekend

 

[crazywildhorse]

I do have a fair bit of confidence that the side will pick up toward the end of the year. Like has been said, all 4 losses could have really easily been wins. It is a very even season, and our side likes a challenge. If Freo don't win the premiership, somehow I still think we will.

 

[Gaston]

If we don't beat Adelaide after the bye I think it might be curtains and turn into a year of what might have been. We can no longer drop the 50/50 games otherwise that hunger we crave (no pun intended) will not return.

 

[Jtree]

I do have a fair bit of confidence that the side will pick up toward the end of the year. Like has been said, all 4 losses could have really easily been wins. It is a very even season, and our side likes a challenge. If Freo don't win the premiership, somehow I still think we will.

Hawthorn are such slow starters.. (In games & in seasons)... In a way, losing takes the focus/pressure off and we can fly under the radar to finals success.

 

[hawkhanlumist]

This is a weird year. I have no fear playing any team away in a final other than swans or Freo. The top 4 currently as it sits would mean we play either GWS or WCE away as I can't see them beating swans or Freo.

If we somehow win our first week, we should be able to get over either team and a prelim is a different ball game as we know over the last 4 years.

On current form, I would back Hawthorn to beat anyone anywhere except maybe freo. we are a much better team than most other sides.

 

[cryptor]

Not a very pessimistic stance to take Pessimistic.

I think you're quite right about other teams treating games against us like Grand Finals. North and Freo did it last year and the Cats were doing it against us for years. The simple fact is that our guys can't summon that level of motivation against a lot of these sides during the H&A. Nor should they either, it's mentally draining. They can focus on doing the basics better though because that would've won us at 3 of the 4 losses.

Freo are looking pretty damn impressive at the moment but we were too early last year until the injuries hit. Freo don't have any where near the level of depth we had then or have now. A couple injuries to key players and they could look very pedestrian again. It's a long season, with plenty of travel for them and their stars are collectively some of the oldest and all have recent histories of soft tissue injuries. If they can defy the odds and make it into September in first place and a full list then quite frankly they deserve a flag.

Sydney I'm not as concerned with. They had a huge fire in the belly last Saturday and threw everything they had at us early and we still managed to wrestle it back. Good on them for pinching it back but it was only some uncharacteristically sloppy skill execution from proven stars (Gunston, Breust, Rioli) that prevented us from getting away with the points.

Back on us though, 4-4 carries the connotation of a fairly average, middle-of-the-road side but I don't believe there has ever a 4-4 side with such a large percentage (one that could grow significantly higher over the next 2 weeks too). The team still plays like a team that can go all the way for the most part. It is just for periods early and late that they aren't switched on. They have the power to turn that around and if they don't then they're undeserving of winning that 3rd consecutive flag anyway.

There's still a lot of this season to play out.

 

[Pessimistic]

Plus we dealt with a lot of adversity last year, we can draw on those learnings.

Frawley is looking good, hartung too. Shoey is a developing option. The rucks are holding. Silk just keeps on doing what he does

 

[cryptor]

It's hard to not let the conclusion of each season influence your thoughts on this question but in isolation and on face value which of these crisis' is worst?

2011: Roughead achilles injury putting him out for season
2012: Only in 8th (5-4) on % and just belted by Richmond (who were 13th before the game) by 10 goals in Round 9
2013: Huge pressure to get a flag but still couldn't get over the line against Geelong (until PF)
2014: Mid-season injury crisis to star/key players
2015: 4-4 after round 8. Gave 4 close games late.

In order of worst to "least worst", I'd have:
2014 - We were expecting to win the flag, not contend, so we stood to lose a lot. Plus the injuries came at a difficult point of our fixture. It doesn't seem like a huge deal now given we won the flag by 10 goals but many on this board has us written off once Gibbo and Mitchell went down for 8+ weeks.
2012 - Wasn't a good start to the season with a couple close losses, an abysmal effort against Sydney down in Tassie and then made to look 3rd rate against a poor Richmond side.
2011 - Roughead going down left a lot of the key forward work up to Buddy and we all know how well he handled being triple teamed most games.
2013 - A very dominant season for HFC but I think many forget just how in our heads this issue was that year. From Jeff and half this board calling for Clarko to be sacked after another close loss to the Cats on Easter Monday to further pessimistic views on our flag chances when they again got us in round 15. The pitchforks were all but lit at 3Qtr time in the PF.
2015 - We've been very unlucky not to be in front at the final siren in 3 of these 4 games with time and skill execution getting the better of us. Despite this our largest losing margin is but a mere 10 points (against a very inform team of 1st round draft picks and experienced recruits - they're not babies any more!) away at a ground we've never played at before with Hodge, Lewis, Lake and Frawley all out. Our percentage is massive for a 4-4 side and we have games against two of the weakest sides in the comp in consecutive weeks before the bye round.

 

[Davo23]

Sydney 2005 was Paul Roos' finest hour.

All we need to do is play ugly footy and we win?

 

[cryptor]

Sydney 2005 was Paul Roos' finest hour.

All we need to do is play ugly footy and we win?

We've played plenty of ugly footy this season but we've lost each time we did.

 

[Hawkk]

Hawthorn is tracking almost game to game (give or take 5 matches) with Brisbane Lions 2003

Instead of going 2-5 (rounds 11-17) we went 3-4 (2-8)

 

[Davo23]

We've played plenty of ugly footy this season but we've lost each time we did.

That's not ugly football.

I mean Paul Roos ugly football: 10 players at every contest, tackling, wrestling every player who gets the ball, scrums of players preventing the ball coming out, low scoring but keeping the other team to a lower score.

That's real ugly!

 

[Argy]

We won 1991 having turned at 6-5 after 11 games.

That's where we'll be if our WLWLWLWL form continues.

 

[cryptor]

That's not ugly football.

I mean Paul Roos ugly football: 10 players at every contest, tackling, wrestling every player who gets the ball, scrums of players preventing the ball coming out, low scoring but keeping the other team to a lower score.

That's real ugly!

Haha I know what you meant. Just meant that we look beautiful when we don't fumble, ugly when we do.