 | Webster's Dictionary describes soft as 'Used of beverages; not containing alcohol'. Which pretty much goes to show that we don't know how to use a dictionary. While it may be an accurate description of the Hawks, it's the least apt. They are soft, they've got no heart, and that's just the tonic Fremantle need to get their season off to a flyer. |
| Once upon a time the mere thought of playing Hawthorn used to strike fear into the hearts of men. They wore the brown and yellow on the outside while their opponents wore it on the inside. They were ruthless, they feared nothing, they would tear a man's hearth out and show it to him before putting it back in and beating him to death with his own limbs. But those days are as far behind the Hawks as the coppers behind a Brownlow medallists on a Saturday night out. At some point, the Hawks players decided that Dermott Brereton was a great footballer because he was a silk shirt wearing, hair tampering, poncy car driving knobber, so instead of practicing how to kick, mark and knock blokes down, they all got themselves season tickets to the local hair salon. Not surprisingly, the result wasn't super tough footballers who dominated the competition but pretty boys whose idea of a hard ball get involves a day at the salon, a night out at the Xchange and the Complete works of George Michael. Worst of all, the players attitudes have spread through the entire club. One of the board once over heard someone in a pub talking about the Hawks need for another midfielder, so he got straight on the phone and traded off Trent Croad. | | Then the supporters got a bit upset, so he got straight back on the phone and starting doing a deal to get Trent back. Their latest thing is trying to overcome the pretty boy tag. A lot of people suggested that it didn't look good for a football team, particularly the softest in the country, to have so many players with blonde hair. They weren't having any of that. So they marched straight down to their local hair stylists and paid a bloke named Alfonz three hundred bucks each to give them haircuts traditionally administered by someone named Shazza to people wearing acid wash jeans.
All they've got now is a pack of pretty boys with bad haircuts - and they're still soft as a tub of organic soy butter. They might be the family club but the wife is making the decisions and she won't make up her bloody mind.
It's not that Hawthorn don't have the cattle. Shane Crawford can reproduced his Brownlow form on any given day, a fit Spider Everitt is the best ruckman in the competition, Richie Vandenberg can play as good as he sounds, Mark William lead the goal kicking for much of last year, Trent Croad was apparently the best centre half back in the competition last year, Sam Mitchell's ability to find skins filled with air is so good that the WA police have put him on the trail of Jack Van Tongren and years of tanking games has earned them plenty of good youngsters. It's just that they'd rather be visiting the Kylie Minogue Museum than playing football where the cold air plays havoc with their various follicles.
Fremantle on the other hand might carry the soft tag because Neil Mildenhall once shirked a contest in1996 and the team that eventually won the NAB Cup beat them in the last quarter this season, but the fact of the matter is that compared to the Hawk they are tougher than Terry Wallace's face after a trip to the solarium on a summers day.
And as far as comparing the two sides on football ability, it's just silly. Sure, Trent Croad caught the eye of a few of the fancy boys they let pick the All Australian side nowadays but stand him next to Matthew Pavlich and all he'll be able to muster is a slack jaw and a mumble along the lines of 'can I get your autograph Pav'. Put Sam Mitchell next to Troy Cook and by half time he'll be eating his oranges through a straw. Put Mark Williams along side Shane Parker and he'll be pretending to shoot himself in the foot so he can be sent home early. Put Peter Everitt next to Aaron Sandilands and aside from blocking out the sun from Launceston to Melbourne, poor old Spider will be looking for a career change as a small in and under rover type.
Meanwhile, Fremantle are raring to go and entering Premiership mode which has set the opening match up for a game more one sided than the church at Tasmanian wedding. Matthew Pavlich is just out of hospital after getting the 6 Million Dollar Man treatment - meaning he'll be better, faster and stronger than last year. Any one of those would be enough tip him over the edge into triple Brownlow Medal status but with all three - the rest of the team can bugger off home and watched the Cheers marathon they recorded on their dvd thingos.
Unfortunately, the problem with Cheers marathons is that the first 12 hours of it has Shelley Long in it, so expect most of the players to show up anyway. Luke McPharlin at full forward being spoon fed by Paul Medhurst. Medhurst collecting the ball off the half forward line from Paul Hasleby who, with his back in order, seems to have so much space you wouldn't be surprised to see Murphy and Mundy start grazing their sheep around him. Josh Carr, Steven Dodd and Ryan Crowley smashing through the centre, hitting everything in their sights like a bunch of bogans at Cronulla beach and Aaron Sandilands taking the ball out of the air at ruck knocks, gift wrapping it and delivering it to his team mates with their choice of scented perfumes. In fact, the game looks like it's going to be so one sided that we had our accountant run the figures and, if you take into account the cost of getting to Tassie, the loss of future earnings from devastated Hawthorn supporters and the expense of shipping the entire Hawthorn team's hair care products, it's be cheaper to call the whole thing off, give Fremantle the 4 points and use the money saved to buy the Cheers Box Set.
The Teams
You Be Chris
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