1. Great Expectations
All of a sudden this could be a beauty.
Only a week ago this wouldn’t have looked anywhere near as juicy with the Hawks knocking on the door of the eight having won three straight and the Dogs sitting on a five game losing streak.
But, take a closer look and what Carlton coach Brendan Bolton likes to call ‘green shoots’ have been visible in the Dogs’ recent performances, particularly against the Kangaroos, and then the Cats last week, was… you probably saw it.
A key to the mini-resurgence has been that the pressure had been dialled back up to record levels, sparking a call from Bob Murphy that maybe, just maybe, we were witnessing the emergence of the Luke Beveridge Bulldogs 2.0.
Cancel your plans.
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2. Sounds like a job for...
Hawthorn currently sit in 10th spot, are coming off the back of a painful loss and will likely see this one as crucial to their finals chances. Translation: we’ll get a fired-up Hawks outfit on Saturday night, make no mistake.
The Hawthorn midfield took a battering from the Giants last week, despite Tom Mitchell’s 50 possessions. The Giants won the clearances 51-28 and had 53 more contested possessions, really un-Hawthorn like numbers. So, that won’t happen again.
Will Mitchell get some extra attention or will he roam free like he did against GWS? Probably the former. He had 12 tackles, nine clearances and seven inside 50s to go with his 50 touches, so he impacts the game in a myriad of ways and will need to be curtailed if the Dogs are to get the points.
Sounds like a job for Josh Dunkley.
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3. Time flies, Dogs bite
Someone once said that a week is a long time in footy. How about a year?
The last time these two teams crossed swords was back in round 23 last year, and in that game the Dogs average age was exactly 25 and had played an average of 101 games between them.
Fast forward to last week and the Dogs rolled out a team that were on average 23-years-old and had played 65 games. That included six players who had played less than 15 games: Lipinski 11, Gowers 14, Naughton 10, Smith 7, Richards 13 and Brad Lynch playing his first game.
Not only did Lynch have a more than solid debut, he was taking the kick-outs in the last quarter. Against Geelong. With the game on the line. Think about that for a second.
All of that said, the Dogs won’t be using age as a crutch, they will rightly expect to be able to win.
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4. Different Strokes
There’ll likely be a contrast in playing styles on Saturday night, with the Hawks heavy users by foot and the Dogs by hand. At least that’s how it looks a couple of days out.
At their best, Hawthorn are able to dictate the terms of the game through their clean, efficient use, but a win in the middle, as the Giants had last week, can wrestle back that control and blunt their advantage.
One thing that the Dogs do better than the Hawks, better than most actually, is take marks inside 50. At roughly 12 per game, the Dogs trail just Melbourne and Richmond in this category. Hawthorn on the other hand, sit in seventh spot.
The Dogs are at the other end of the table when it comes to goal kicking accuracy, though, so squeeze a couple of extras through and we’ll have a game on our hands.
Is it Saturday yet?
