The Hawks ran away with the game in the final term, kicking five goals to one to give them a six goal victory after leading by only four points at half time.
However, the home side simply made the most in the wet, despite Melbourne staying with them for most of the game.
The Hawks adapted to the atrocious conditions better in the opening term and had ten scoring shots to three, to lead by 22 points at the first change.
Melbourne was unable to get the ball into their forward 50 early in the game and their defence was working overtime with Alistair Nicholson, Peter Walsh, Matthew Collins and Nathan Brown all tireless. However, the Hawks were smarter in their approach and used the wind to their advantage at the Punt Road end.
Hawthorn gained extra metres with longer kicks and used far better options in the conditions. Aaron Lord and John Barker were excellent in the opening term, kicking two goals each.
Melbourne’s only major came during the 16-minute mark when Jeff Farmer and Guy Rigoni teamed well to create a goal for Brad Green.
While Hawthorn dominated proceedings early in the game, after quarter time, Melbourne reversed the trend, kicking three goals to zip.
Melbourne skipper, David Neitz, was adapting to the conditions as the game wore on and his marking was starting to have an effect. His two goals plus a classy soccer off the ground by Adem Yze enabled the Dees to peg the score back to just four points at half time.
Hawthorn’s Daniel Chick, Daniel Harford, Luke McCabe and Rayden Tallis were all prominent during the first half in the midfield as was Brown, Yze and Daniel Ward for Melbourne.
After half time, the Hawks kicked two goals to nil and it was a similar display to the second term. Aaron Lord kicked his third, however he could have had four to his name, after a goal was disallowed due to an infringement. Melbourne could only muster two behinds and trailed by 19 points going into the final break.
While, the swirling rain stopped during the third quarter, the ground was getting dimmer and this resulted in the lights coming on late in the term.
Melbourne went into the last quarter with the goal-scoring Punt Road end and when Shane Woewodin kicked the opening goal at the two-minute mark, the game looked as though it would go right down to the wire.
However, Hawthorn had other ideas and bucked the trend of scoring at the City Road end. Before the final quarter, Green’s goal in the first term was the only one scored at that end.
But two goals to Lord (who finished with five goals for the match) and Ben Dixon, plus one from Daniel Chick signaled the end for Melbourne. In what was a reasonably tight match for the majority of the day, the Hawks walked over the Dees in the final quarter to win by 39 points.
