As it happened: Hawks draw with Demons, Power win thriller against Saints, Bulldogs overcome Suns

This was the goal that tied things up with 41 seconds to go

Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson spoke to the media after the game...

Q: You must have been proud of the way your boys fought back. Early in the second quarter the Dees looked like they were on top. You were putting on pressure. You must have been proud how it ended up.
A: Definitely strong game. They’re a good side. The polish of their side early on. Probably over the course of the night, the polish as you expect, the composure that you gather as you get more experience in this game. Different stages they hurt us with the chains of possession. High quality midfielders. By and large over the course of the game the pressure they were able to apply that Melbourne were unable to get that free-flowing game going with their chains through the middle of the ground which they like to play with. They gave us a chance to be right in the contest. We allowed them to get away to a bit of a start. It was eight scoring shots to two or three or thereabouts at quarter- time. For us to outscore them for the rest of the game, win the rest of the game, win three of the quarters, albeit the last quarter was by a point, it’s a real credit to our guys to allow a top-of-ladder side to get away from us for a start and then pull them back. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the win. But we gained a hell of a lot of our game for our younger players to know they can come up against a high-quality opponent like that and stay in the contest which was beneficial for their footy going forward.

Q: Alastair you mentioned the composure there a little bit. It did feel in the second half perhaps you guys were sort of able to narrow the focus a bit with the ball movement rather than kick it to intercept guys. Was that a message at half-time?
A: We prepared our players obviously it was going to a slippery night. Probably over-prepared them in the sense for just getting the ball forward. As the game sort of unfolded, I’m not sure there was a share of rain at all through the course of the night given the day we had today, I thought there would be scattered showers. As the game wore on you could actually use the ball and compose your possession a bit better than what we did. We were a bit rushed in the first half. We did get better in the second half. We gave ourselves a chance with some change of ball movement in the second half, it allowed us to score more freely. It was a tough contest. We out-tackled the Melbourne side tonight which is pleasing for a younger side to be able to apply that sort of pressure. It gave us some
chance on turn over which is pleasing. The disappointing part is we had over 80 tackles and only three holding-the-balls, didn’t get rewarded for our super effort in that space. Having said that maybe the reward came just because we’re in the game and in the contest and got us to draw. We would have liked to think with the effort we applied in terms of our tackling we would have got more reward on some of the free kicks.

Q: You have spoken a lot through the season about not only yourself becoming familiar with some of these young players but the players becoming familiar with each other playing out in the field. When you’re coming up against the team that is a premiership contender are there particular teams that you look for or stand out to you whether it’s the appetite for the contest or composure that you mentioned. Certain aspects how the players stand up in that game that you look for?
A: Yeah, obviously there’s probably three guys in the Melbourne side. Lever, May and Salem, that are highly likely to be all-Australian at the end of the year. Another three in Gawn, Oliver, and Petracca and probably Langdon who will be All-Australian midfielders. They’ve got a couple forward of the ball that have had really good seasons. The exposure our young fellas to play on these types of guys is first-class. I haven’t looked at the stats but at different stages there the game’s tally of our front half, I think they’d be lucky to be 50 games amongst the different stages of the game. Certainly when Luke Breust is off the ground having a spell, he was the only one of our forwards that had significant game tally. The rest of them were just pups in terms of AFL footy. For us to be able to compete and kick a score gets us 12 goals and gets us a draw. It’s just enormous experience for those guys to play on really talented All-Australian defenders in some cases. To be able to compete, we didn’t do anything startling in our front half. We did enough to force the contest on enough occasions for us to kick a score and trouble the Melbourne defence. And allow us to draw a game of footy against top of the table team.

Q: The draw in general I guess they always ask this question, for you guys where you’re at and you spoke about the positives you take out of it. What does it feel like when the siren goes at the draw. Do you take some satisfaction from this or do you feel like you’ve left something on the table?
A: Enormous satisfaction. I wouldn’t think there’s so much satisfaction in the Demons camp. When you’re in the finals it does separate them from every other team in the eight. Because they’ve got a draw by their name now. It’s not based on percentage or whether they finish top or wherever they finish. Somewhere down the track it might benefit Melbourne. With us, we’re a young side. We’re coming up against top of the ladder sides. We gave them a three or four goal head start. Halfway through the second quarter it was six goals to two. For us to get ourselves back into the contest and give ourselves a chance to win late in the game was a real credit to our boys. It’s not about the wins and loss for us right now. It’s about competing and getting exposure to our young players, playing senior footy. And whether we won or loss was not in the equation for us tonight. It’s getting the exposure and competing. We’re proud of our team tonight. They tried so hard. Whether it was
youngest bloke playing early games of footy or whatever, it was one of our oldest guys like Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O’Meara and Ben McEvoy’s leadership, some of our guys down the back coming up against seasoned opponents. Tim O’Brien did a good job. He had a job to do on Tom McDonald. Tom McDonald is one of those guys that is in All-Australian contention for the end of year. Tim O’Brien is learning his craft, he’s played most of his career as a forward. We tried him down back this week, we wanted Mitch Lewis to come into the side. He kicked a couple of goals and straightened us up a bit. Tim O’Brien did a good job down back. We’ll continue to try a few things in the last five games of the season. See where it places us for position ourselves next week.

Q: I was going to ask about the preparation. Nothing new for you guys. Have to adjust with
different situations today with Conor Nash pulling out. What’s this situation like with your team, the testing you had to do or when you found out he wasn’t able to play, how did that work?
A: In all of this we’re guided by the AFL and the government. And our leadership at the club in terms of the directives that we’re given from above. We try to comply with whatever protocols and whatever strategies that put in place for us to navigate our way through this really difficult dilemma that we face as a game. More widely as a community, a lot of Australia is implicated right at the present time with COVID. Probably even more so, strangely enough than last year. Last year we isolated to different states. One at a time sort of thing. This current one is like you’re implicating nearly all states. That must be an unbelievable challenge for all the governments around the country, of course, particularly for the AFL. Trying to work out where they can play games if they can actually play games. That is going to be ongoing until we see a plateau with some of these numbers. Whether it’s isolation sites or whether it’s actually positive testing of those in the community. We’ll do what is required. With Conor Nash’s case, that meant he had to withdraw from the game today which is unfortunate for him and us. Hopefully once he’s tested - he already had a test late this
Week, it’s shown it’s negative, he needs another one - hopefully he can return into the program as soon as he can to get himself up and going again.

Q: So Conor might not have a fortnight’s quarantine Alastair?
A: Once again we’ll be guided by the authorities, particularly the government, also the league in terms of what’s required in that space. We’ll see where that goes. That will probably take place over the next couple of days to see where that’s at.

Melbourne may have regained top spot on the ladder but the Demons were left stunned after they were held to a draw by a disciplined Hawthorn at an empty MCG on Saturday night. Click here to read the full report.

Here’s some more reaction to tonight’s stunning result at the MCG...

Here’s some more reaction to tonight’s thrilling draw...

This was the goal that tied things up with 41 seconds to go