HAWTHORN forward Lance Franklin continued to torment Adelaide as the Hawks handed out what Crows coach Neil Craig described as a valuable lesson at Aurora Stadium today.
The Hawks won 17.12 (114) to 10.10 (70) with Franklin booting six goals, to follow up his match-winning seven-goal haul against the same side in last year's elimination final thriller at Telstra Dome.
Franklin now has 21 goals after four games this season, but while Craig predicted there were more big goal hauls in store for him this year, he was more impressed with the systematic way the unbeaten Hawks dismantled his side.
"It's a great lesson for our playing group that that level of expertise exists, because they're very well drilled, so it's something for us to aim for," Craig said.
“Hawthorn was very good today in terms of a benchmark game for us for the season so far, [just] to see our style of play under some really good defensive pressure; their capacity to get to us quickly was very, very good.
“It was a tough learning experience, but a good learning experience.
“We’ve got a lot of development to do – a lot of development. And that’s why that game for us, both as a playing group and a coaching group, will be a significant game for us this year.”
The Crows have won fans with their more adventurous game plan, which has seen them better placed than was popularly thought before the start of the season, but Craig refused to categorise the loss as a ‘reality check’.
“It was a good day for us, a learning day for us, for a whole range of reasons … [but] I think it’s only a reality check if you think you’re a bit better than what you are and I’d be disappointed if we thought that,” he said.
Adelaide was put through the wringer by a Port Adelaide side bent on exerting a strong physical presence in last weekend’s Showdown win, but Craig refused to use that as an excuse for the defeat.
“That would be taking too much away from Hawthorn and if we went down that path, if that even entered our thinking, we’d be doing ourselves a disservice,” he said.
“Our preparation during the week was very, very good, the mentality of the guys was good today and you saw that. All due credit to our guys, I mean we could have got really blown away today. Eight goals is a significant margin, but it could have been a lot worse if it wasn’t for our effort.”
He admitted there were echoes of the Crows' playing style from their impressive 2005 and 2006 seasons in the Hawks' ability to congest the middle of the ground and prevent Adelaide finding the shortest path to goal.
"They do it really well and they do it religiously and they do it systematically, it's all credit to their playing group and their coaching group," Craig said.
“But we’ve seen it before in the competition, so where we are as a group of players and the profile of our squad, we haven’t got the skill set yet to handle that and hopefully as the year goes on we will.”
Both sides found it tough to move the ball fluently into attack in the early stages, making scoring difficult, but Franklin's four first-half goals allowed the Hawks to build a three-goal buffer by the long break.
He proved too mobile for Ben Rutten and bombed in three goals with set shots from 50m or beyond, as well as another from closer range.
