His flurry of last quarter goals saw him go past the career goals’ tallies of two of the Club’s all-time greats, Graham Arthur and Peter Knights, who both kicked 201 goals in their illustrious careers.
Three times in the past two decades, Hawthorn has recorded its second win for the season in Round 8. In 2004 and 2005, the Round 8 wins were rare triumphs in seasons where Hawthorn finished 15th and 14th respectively, but 1996 holds out greater hope for Hawks’ fans still hoping the Club can achieve some success in 2010.
Hawthorn went into Round 8 1996 having not won since Round 1 (and that win was against the terminal Fitzroy). One positive compared to 2010 was that they had also played a draw (their six points had them 13th on the ladder), but on the debit side the 1996 percentage of 70.3 was significantly inferior to the current 85.8.
In Round 8 1996, Hawthorn led all day to beat Melbourne by 51 points and, if the Brownlow votes are a guide, it was the ‘old firm’ which got Hawthorn home with the votes going to John Platten, Jason Dunstall and Chris Langford. However, in terms of disposals it was a mature-age recruit, Craig Treleven, who took the honours with 25.
At the time, the victory over fellow struggler Melbourne was not seen as a major triumph, but the game did mark one crucial turning point - Jason Dunstall returned to the sort of form he had not showed since the first half of the 1994 season. Since kicking 11 against Sydney in Round 12, 1994 (to take his tally for the season to an incredible 64 from eight matches), he had not managed to get past six in 34 subsequent games. He had kicked six on seven occasions and five on a further five occasions, but it seemed that, at the age of 31, the days of the really big bags were behind him.
From 18 goals after seven games, the eight against Melbourne was followed by other significant tallies - nine in Round 11, 14 in Round 19 and ten in Round 22. Dunstall’s 102 goals for the season was a crucial factor in Hawthorn’s rise up the ladder, which from Round 8 onwards saw ten wins and just five defeats, and culminated in clinching a Finals’ spot in a dramatic Round 22.
Lance Franklin is enduring a similar run to Jason Dunstall’s in the mid 1990s. Whereas from half way through 1994 to Round 8, 1996, Dunstall could not get past six, in the past two seasons Franklin cannot get past five.
Franklin has not kicked more than five goals in a game since he booted eight in the 2008 Qualifying Final. Remarkably, he has kicked five goals seven times since then - on five occasions in 2009 and twice already this season. He has also kicked four goals on six occasions.
Forty years ago, the 1970 season had seen Hawthorn have a particularly disappointing start, being last, winless and two games behind the second bottom team after seven rounds. Prospects of a win did not appear too great in Round 8 as the Hawks were taking on a South Melbourne team who, under the coaching of Norm Smith, were second on the ladder with a 6-1 record, and eyeing off a Finals birth for the first time since 1945.
After an even first term, the game was a rout, but not the way the ladder suggested. In the second term Hawthorn added 9.7 to 2.3 and went onto record a 62 point win, helped in no small part by 13 goals from Peter Hudson.
As they did in 1996, Hawthorn won ten of the last 15 games in 1970, in this case finishing well out of the Final Four. However, the fact that the run of wins including victories over both eventual Grand Finalists, Carlton and Collingwood, argued that the Hawks could be heading towards a successful year in 1971.
Hawthorn and Richmond have met on 147 occasions, with the Hawks winning 65 and the Tigers 82. The deficit of 17 is attributable to the fact that Richmond won the first 21 encounters between the two clubs. Hawthorn secured its first victory at the 22nd attempt, by a thrilling two-point margin at Glenferrie in Round 16, 1936. Older Hawks fans will remember fondly two lengthy winning sequences against Richmond, as the brown and gold strung together ten consecutive wins from 1959 to 1964 and then bettered that with 16 in a row between 1985 and 1994.
Hawthorn has won four of the last five meetings between the two clubs, the one loss coming in Round 20, 2008 with Richmond scoring an upset win by 29 points, in what proved to be the last loss of Hawthorn’s premiership season. Last season, the two clubs did not meet until Round 21, the game resulting in Hawthorn’s only win in the last six weeks of the season - 20.15.135 to 14.9.93.
Hawthorn and Richmond last met in Round 8 in 1978, but a more memorable Round 8 encounter between the two clubs was in 1973.
Hawthorn with a 3-4 record journeyed to the MCG to take on a Richmond team that was 6-1 and was on track to what would prove to be Grand Final success. A crowd of 32,613 saw the Hawks bounce out to a 19 point quarter time lead which they gradually extended to a comfortable 37 point winning margin - 16.23.119 to 10.22.82.
Hawthorn had tried a number of players at full forward since Peter Hudson had injured his knee in the opening round of the previous season, but they now looked to have found a handy replacement in Wayne Bevan. Playing just his sixth game, Bevan booted his second bag of five goals, taking his tally for the year to 20. He booted a further five three weeks later, but then struggled to maintain his form. After 15 games in his debut season, he managed only a further four in 1974 and just a solitary game in 1975.
Two other players who were also tried at full-forward in Hudson’s absence were also in that Round 8 forward line - Michael Moncrieff contributed three goals and Charlie Grummisch two.
In 84 Round 8 matches, Hawthorn has won 41 and lost 43 (having had a bye 1992). It has been one of the better rounds for the Hawks in recent times, with eight wins in the last ten seasons, the only blemishes coming in 2003 and 2006. The past three years in Round 8 have seen the Hawks ground out a win in a low-scoring Saturday night MCG encounter with St Kilda in 2007, overcome a 32-point quarter time deficit to defeat Port Adelaide by 15 points in Launceston in 2008 and last season beat Fremantle by 22 points at Subiaco.
Ten years ago, in Round 8 2000, Mark Graham was BOG as the 12th placed Hawks squared the ledger for the season thrashing the fourth placed Kangaroos by 61 points under the Friday night MCG lights. Graham was one of three Hawks to have over 30 disposals, the others being Tony Woods and Daniel Harford.
The big names dominate the leading goal-kickers in Round 8. Peter Hudson booted 13 in this round in 1970 against South Melbourne - as described above, while Jason Dunstall kicked ten in 1994 (against Brisbane). The record number of goals kicked by a Hawthorn player against Richmond was the 17 Dunstall kicked in 1992. He also kicked the second highest against Richmond, a bag of 12, later in the same season.
