Last Saturday Lance Franklin achieved two feats that had not been occurred for nine years.  His nine goal haul for the match was the highest since Jason Dunstall’s nine in Round 10 1998, while his five goals in the second term was the most in a quarter since Dunstall booted six in the first quarter in Round 8 1998. 

Those two 1998 games, against Essendon and the Bulldogs respectively, both resulted in Hawthorn defeats, despite Dunstall’s goal-kicking exploits.

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Franklin has also gone to the top of the AFL goal-kicking table for the first time.  Unlike his other goal-kicking achievements, this was not a first since Dunstall in 1998.  Mark Williams headed the goal-kicking for 11 rounds in 2005 and was equal top after Rounds 1, 4, 5 and 6 in 2006.

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Hawthorn has now won four games in a row versus Essendon.  It is the fourth sequence of four or more consecutive wins joining a run of six in 1987-89 and other sequences of four in 1977-78 and 1983-84.

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Saturday’s crowd of 52,047 was the 31st time that a Hawthorn home and away game has been attended by more than 50,000 people.  It was the fourth such attendance in a Hawthorn game against Essendon.  There have also been four 50,000 plus crowds for Hawthorn games against Richmond, behind only Melbourne (5) and Collingwood (14).  

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Hawthorn has a very good record against Fremantle having won 13 of the 18 clashes between the two clubs since the Dockers entered the competition in 1995.  These include wins in four of the last five encounters.

The Hawks’ record against Fremantle in Perth is also very sound.  Losses in 1997, 2002 and 2006 are more than offset by wins in 1996, 1998 (at the WACA), 1999, 2001 and 2005.  The wins have all been by comfortable margins – 57, 42, 34, 23 and 54.  The most recent victory at Subiaco came in Round 9 2005 when Hawthorn 18.16.124 defeated Fremantle 10.10.70.

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2007 is the second season when Hawthorn’s results in the opening six rounds have been LWWWLW.  The previous occasion was 1980 and in that year Hawthorn recorded a Round 7 win.

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Hawthorn’s overall Round 7 record is 38 wins and 43 losses and one draw.  The Hawks have not recorded a Round 7 win since 2002.  In that year, the Hawks thrashed Geelong by 52 points at the MCG.  Since then there have been Round 7 defeats against Kangaroos, Geelong, West Coast and Brisbane Lions.  The Hawks won eight consecutive Round 7 matches from 1971 to 1978.

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The most goals by a Hawthorn player against Fremantle is eight by Mark Williams in Round 1 last season.  Round 7 produced the highest individual goal tally by a Hawthorn player ever – 15 years ago this round Jason Dunstall booted 17 against Richmond at Waverley.

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1957 – Fifty Years On

Round 5, 1957
Saturday, 18 May, 1957 at Kardinia Park
Hawthorn 3.19.37 defeated by Geelong 9.10.64

A couple of interesting news stories between Rounds 4 and 5, 1957 were the Hawthorn committee considering whether it should review its earlier decision not to clear ‘Candles’ Thompson back to Sturt and League delegates complaining that “the umpires have been so inconsistent this year that the public does not know what constitutes a mark”.  Some football issues never change. 

In Round 4, Hawthorn had beaten reigning Premier Melbourne (described by some as the Hawks first ever ‘match of the day’ win) and reclaimed top spot on the ladder.  This  meant Hawthorn was favourite to beat 10th placed Geelong at Kardinia Park, the favouritism coming despite the fact that the club had only recorded one win (by a solitary point in 1948) in 13 previous visits to the venue (having also recorded only one win from 13 attempts at Geelong’s previous home ground, Corio Oval).

It proved to be an unusual game – Hawthorn had three more scoring shots than Geelong, but lost by 27 points.  What was particularly striking was that one player, Les Kaine, kicked all three of the team’s goals, one in the second term and two in the last.

Confidence was a key discussion point in the newspapers.  The Hawks were accused of having gone into the game with “cocksure confidence”, yet by the end of the game “Hawthorn betrayed badly shaken confidence by taking full forward Terry Ingersoll and rover Cyril Collard from the field”.

Ingersoll received quite some sympathy in match reports.  The Age said his teammates forgot they had a full forward, while The Sun reported that he was “hemmed in by friend and foe alike making leading impossible”.  It was said that Hawthorn players “kicked wildly” and “rarely looked for a teammate”. 

In bids to lift the side Jack Hale made some positional changes at half-time, including putting John Peck into the ruck and Roy Simmonds into the centre, while Hawks’ captain John Kennedy tried valiantly to rally his colleagues.  Overall the best players were Hughes, Woodley, Arthur, Gent, Kaine and Edwards.

The defeat sent the Hawks back to 3rd with a 3-2 record after five rounds.  It was also noted that Hawthorn’s scoring for the season was now 44.80, a degree of inaccuracy that was to lead Jack Hale to call a summit on the goalkicking issue the following Thursday evening. 

The evenness of and consequent interest in the competition was reflected in the fact that a record 158,849 people attended the round’s six matches, breaking a record set just two weeks earlier.

Player of the week – Les Kaine

Les Kaine’s performance on 18 May, 1957 still earns him two mentions in the AFL Guide To Season 2007 on pages 603-4.  It remains the second most recent occurrence of a player at any club kicking all his team’s goals (minimum of 3 goals) and he is also mentioned as the most recent sole goal-kicker for Hawthorn.    

The only other occasion when a Hawthorn player booted all three goals in the team’s score was in Round 14, 1926 when ‘Tich’ Utting booted all 3 goals in a 3.10 to 16.8 loss to Collingwood at Victoria Park.

Les Kaine, speaking this week from his home in Coleraine, remembers the conditions on the day as being difficult and thought that the team played well, other than in its kicking for goal.

He recalls that many teams traveling to Geelong were beaten before they started due to the difficulty of negotiating of the trip which was much more onerous when there was no freeway to speed the journey.

The routine was that the players would travel by bus and stop for lunch at a hotel in Werribee.  The bus would wait for them several hundred yards on from the hotel to give players the opportunity to stretch their legs on the way back to the bus.

Kaine says that much of the credit for Hawthorn’s 1957, and subsequent, success belongs to Jack Hale.  He remembers Hale as a very hard and tough coach.

Kaine also pointed out that he was one of just four players who played in this match at Geelong who went on to be part of the 1961 Premiership team – the others were Graham Arthur, John Peck and Brendan Edwards.

The individual who deserves the credit for getting Kaine to Hawthorn was secretary Bill Newton, who refused to leave the Kaine family’s Coleraine home until Les signed a Form Four.

Kaine debuted in Round 1 1956 and remained at Hawthorn until 1962, playing a total of 103 games and kicking 80 goals.  Post-Hawthorn he was playing coach at Castlemaine and Kyneton, winning a premiership at the latter in 1966.  He lived near Waverley Park for many years, before returning to his home town of Coleraine in the early 1990s.

 
Goals:              Kaine 3
 
Attendance:     18,000