It’s of no consequence, but people are having a laugh if they think our outs are equal to Dangerfield and Cameron. Dangerfield would be the best player on nearly every list, let alone ours, and he destroys us every time.
Analysis Clarko in 2019 “We’re a middle of the road team”
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Milkshaker
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Added Higgins and Smith as well. Smith has not missed a beat. Higgins injury curse might have a hold of him again.
Clarko has done it again! Although I’m not sure if “it” is good or bad as I can’t read the article.
Roger Rogerson
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Makings of a premiership backline. Not with BOTH of Frost and Hartigan in it. Can carry one not both and Sicily would have to be in it.
Yes if only we had an elite kpd on the list who could develop into the anchor around which our backline is built
Sturty
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Yes if only we had an elite kpd on the list who could develop into the anchor around which our backline is built
u talking about Kaiden Brand?
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Scrimshaw, Day, CJ, Hardwick and Shaggy all under 24 with Sicily and Impey only 26. That's a better backline than we had during 11-14
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Which of those players would get into our backline from 2011- 2014? Are you including Lake in that timeframe given he was only there for half of that?
Sicily is the only one guaranteed. Maybe in a few years once the players develop further we could make that claim.
Guerra - Lake (2013) - Stratton
Birchall - Gibson - Hodge
Burgoyne and Suckling rotating through.
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Lake, Gibson, Birchall, hodge, Stratton, guerra say hi.
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woaaaahh mate huge call.
And Silk. 5 of the 7 clear elite / superstar players and at their peak, and stratts at the time prob best mid sized lockdown player in the league. Guerra was a gun and a better player than Hardwick.
Even if everyone came on to the most optimistic projections the 2013 backline is still better - it was that bloody good.
DGB, Sicily, day, Impey, CJ, scrimshaw, Hardwick
Lake, Gibson, hodge, Birchall, silk, stratts,guerra
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Geez we had an elite backline back then. Probably goes understated given how good our midfield and forward line were.
The big thing about that backline is how it didn’t need protecting. We could play all out attack all game trying to put as many goals on as possible and our defence would always be there to defend against the inevitable quick ball movement the other way.
Even if we conceded a couple more goals playing more offensively we scored way more than that to make up for it. Let’s hope our defence now can get to such a point that we can be more offensive and risky with our ball movement without it all falling apart.
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Our defense was the weakest part of the ground, until we recruited Lake we were just lucky we had a Forward line that could out score everyone else and a team system and midfield that could protect fast ball movement. Tell me how good the above were at 20-24. I don't expect anyone to agree and it could be a reach but I already have super confidence with this defense.
OnTheRocks
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What was Goo back then, 26-31? Prime years which Hardwick hasn't entered yet.
Exactly, those 2 are simply stop gaps whilst we turn over and find our best side.
Was it Stratton that opposition would zone off and force him to kick? Lake even?
Same will apply to Frost as the side improves.
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Corrections - our KPD stocks were the weakest part of our team. Then we recruited the missing piece in Lake. Everything else was elite.
Hodge, Birchall, Gibson, Guerra, Suckling, Burgoyne were all elite kicks. Currently only Sicily is on that level.
Gibbo was not an elite penetrating kick like the others, but a very safe one. We can only dream that our current lot will come close to that back line - no doubt there is some potential to get excited about. We’ll need shaggy to come good and then find the next Lake.
Sam Mitchell was not telling the footy world anything he had not already told seven-game defender Changkuoth Jiath on the eve of the AFL season.
To his mates, Mitchell is great company because he is straight shooter, but the Box Hill coach chose his words wisely when asked to describe CJ’s development in 2020.
“His best is phenomenal but his worst did cost us fairly regularly and as a defender that’s quite tough,” Mitchell said.
“The thing he has worked on and credit to him is doing the simple things well.”
Four games ago Jiath’s career looked at an intersection.
With a one-year rookie deal and Alex Rance-style brain fades that seemed to cancel out the positives — intercept marking gifts, roaming runs up the field — his future was in his own hands.
Yet a month into the AFL season, it is apparent that Jiath might be an AFL star in the making.
And while Alastair Clarkson’s rebuild for his next bit of “silverware” still seems very much a work in transition, if you peer hard into the future, you can see the makings of a premiership back six.
Hawthorn fans, who have got used to Clarkson trashing the national draft — despite it being the bedrock of his four flags — and seeing recruits such as Michael Hartley and Kyle Hartigan enter the club, still aren’t quite sure.
The Hawks still need another star midfielder and a bona fide key position star alongside 29-year-old Jack Gunston before anyone gets too excited about their premiership claims.
But consider Hawthorn’s Round 1 side next year and the talent that Clarkson will call on in his backline.
James Sicily, still listed as indefinite after an August 2020 ACL tear, will command that backline with CJ as his intercept-marking back-up.
Will Day, out with a fractured ankle, has already established his bone fides as a special talent who can play half back or wing.
Last year’s No. 6 overall pick Denver Grainger-Barras, out with a knee hyperextension, has the junior pedigree but not yet the senior performances to show he can be an intercept-marking defender for 200 games.
Blake Hardwick, 24, and swingman Jarman Impey, 25, have pace and potential and No. 7 draft pick Jack Scrimshaw continues to put in the kind of 22-possession, 10-mark games against Geelong that show his upside is significant.
None of it guarantees anything, but if the Hawks are to build from its defence up it is an excellent starting point.
In the past fortnight 197cm marking forward Emerson Jeka has kicked 11 goals in a pair of VFL practice games, including six straight two weeks ago.
Jeka, a former No. 9 rookie draft pick from the Western Jets with an Albanian heritage, can’t be too far away from his AFL debut.
Pre-season revelation Connor Downie lost momentum when made the medical sub in Round 1 and Tyler Brockman might need a rest despite six goals in four games.
But it is Jiath who is shooting up the charts quicker than any of them.
Remarkably, he has coaches votes in every single game so far this year, and it isn’t about favouritism given Hawthorn’s coaches mark his weaknesses harder than any media pundit or umpire. Jiath is averaging the third-most marks in the AFL this year (8.5) and third-most intercept marks (4.3) behind only Liam Jones and Darcy Moore.
Is it a flash in the pan?
Possibly, but look at the consistency for a player with only 11 AFL games under his belt.
In four games he has churned out remarkably consistent performances given his possessions (22, 25, 23, 24), intercept marks (one, five, four, seven) and intercept possessions (seven, 11, five, nine).
He would also be in for some kind of pay rise off his rookie salary if not for a games-based clause that will see him signed on for 2022.
But the Hawks would be wise to renegotiate anyway given a speculative pick from Xavier College looks a piece of that premiership side, however long it takes to mature.
Whether it is Clarkson or Mitchell or someone else entirely at the helm in the medium-term future, the challenge to rebuild without a long list of premium draft picks will still be immense.
Yet as Clarkson goes about it his way the future looks immeasurably brighter than even four short weeks ago.
Clarko‘s message to potential suitors
Hawthorn master coach Alastair Clarkson says he is prepared to see through a third rebuild as he seeks to further “defy” AFL equalisation measures and secure a fifth premiership flag.
After winning just five games last year, the Hawks find themselves 1-3 to start this season and the club has not played finals since 2018.
However, Clarkson — who has been at the helm since 2005 — said while he might be out of contract at the end of 2022, he was fully planning to see through the current rebuild.
“I’d trust the history,” Clarkson said when asked about his future on Fox Footy’s AFL360.
“It’s been 17 years. Trust the history. Loyalty’s pretty strong, both at Hawthorn and me. “I’m excited for it (the rebuild) and I’ll do it for as long as the club and I see fit that we’re making progress.”
Clarkson said he had entered the coaching ranks with the belief that teams needed “seven or eight years” to rebuild in order to challenge for a premiership, but the Hawks had shown that time frame could be a lot quicker by winning the premiership in 2008.
“That was the forecast I gave to the players and the club and everyone and we were all invested in that but we turned it around in four years,” Clarkson said.
“The competition is geared, really, for every team in the competition to win once every 18 years is the idealistic model that the AFL would love. That would suggest that you are going to win four flags in 72 years, idealistically. We’ve won four in 15 years or there abouts. “So there would be some in the competition that would say, ‘Bye, bye Hawthorn, that’s you for 60 years’. But that’s the competitive juices of what we’re in. We’re trying to defy what the competition is and they’re trying to regulate it in a matter that gives everyone an opportunity.
“But we also understand that within that it provides some challenges, because it’s difficult to get access to high draft picks and equalisation gives you equal opportunity to get some talent when you’re not such a good club.
“Then also, if you’re not getting the talent in then you might fall away a bit.
“So we’re just trying to work out that balance of injecting talent from draft, free agency, trading with other clubs to get that mix that we think can help us win a flag.”
OnTheRocks
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