FROM THE TOP DECK

The Hawks are probably the defining opponent of Luke Beveridge’s tenure. 

Bob Murphy’s knee, the semi-final that made it feel real, snuffing out the faint finals hopes of 2017 and spoiling Murphy and Matthew Boyd’s farewell all came in the first few seasons. But it’s what’s happened in the 2020s that has been more significant.

In the haze that is memories of that Covid-infected 2021 season, most will point to the xScore pisser loss to Essendon as the game that cost them the double chance, but it was a week later against a Hawks team with six wins from their first 20 games that rang alarm bells as the Dogs managed only 37 points in Launceston. 

Two years later, in perhaps the most disappointing season of the Bevo era, they again missed finals. A home loss to an unimaginably bad Eagles side is reasonably pointed to as the nadir. That game wouldn’t have been such a dagger, however, had they not lost to the Hawks (again with six wins from their first 20 games WTF) a week earlier.

And perhaps the most disheartening loss of all came a year later when the Dogs earned a “home” elimination final. For all the talk of the wasted 2025 season, that 2024 side was better, they just happened to cop their cryptonite in the first week of finals.

The script is frustratingly similar each time. The Hawks stop the Dogs from turning hard inside ball into clean outside ball. They spread in transition making the ground seem too large to defend, and cut them to pieces with their kicking skills. The Dogs have no answers for the Hawks’ creative front-half players – Watson, Moore and Ginnivan, who turns into prime Gaz Jr each time he faces them.

Pre-season games are really just ideas. It’s hard to know what each team is trying to get out of them and the actual results aren’t as important as the method. But the Dogs had some good ideas in that win against the Hawks this year. Tim English being able to expose Meek and Reeves with his running is a real thing that should be repeatable in real games; the mids found that inside-to-out connection; and the defenders appeared more connected and bolder in the air. 

It’s what made the Gather Round match so disappointing; not that they lost, but that they never got to a real swing at them. It was apparent five minutes in that they had no answers in the ruck and everything snowballed from there.

Which brings us to tonight. I don’t know yet what this team is. Sam Darcy isn’t coming back, so whatever the best version of this team is doesn’t include him. But they’re getting close, and given the Hawks’ outs this is about as good a look as they’re going to get at them. Whether it would be a signifier of something bigger or not doesn’t really matter; it’s June, you just have to grind out wins.

Season votes

OR v Lions: 9 Richards; 7 Budarick, Bontempelli; 6 Kennedy, Lobb

R1 v GWS: 8 Bontempelli, Naughton; 7 Liberatore, English; 6 Khamis

R2 v Adelaide: 7 Bontempelli, Khamis, Freijah; 6 Liberatore, Kennedy

R4 v Essendon: 7 Bontempelli; 6 Khamis, Kennedy, Jones; 5 Darcy

R5 v Hawks: 6 Richards, Sellwood, O’Donnell; 5 Kennedy, Sanders

R6 v Cats: 6 Dale; 5 Sellwood, Kennedy, Sanders, Davidson

R7 v Sydney: 7 Bontempelli; 6 Dale, Sellwood; 5 Sanders, Williams

R8 v Fremantle: 7 Bontempelli, Dale; 6 Sellwood, Sanders, Richards

R9 v Port Adelaide: 8 Bontempelli; 7 Dale, Sellwood; 6 Freijah, Sanders

R10 v Carlton: 6 Dale; 5 Bontempelli, Sanders, Naughton, Busslinger

R11 v Melbourne: 8 Richards; 7 Bontempelli, Naughton; 6 Dale, Sanders

R12 v Collingwood: 8 Dale; 7 Richards; 6 Bontempelli, Sanders, English

Leaderboard

Bontempelli 69

Dale 46

Sanders 44

Richards 30

Kennedy 28

Naughton 20