Clarko did a Thommo, but will Tery do a Clarko
Gerard Healy
Herald Sun
27 August 2005
THIS time last year, Richmond and Hawthorn were battling to avoid being labelled the worst side in the competition.
The title went to the Tigers.
A few weeks later they were both chasing Terry Wallace's signature, and Richmond won that battle too.
This year, the two clubs played each other twice and, you guessed it, Richmond won both times.
So that's four from four for the Tigers, yet in the bigger battle – the war, if you like – the Hawks just might be in front.
Why? Because this year Alastair Clarkson wasn't coaching for 2005, he was looking at 2006 and beyond. This despite the fact he had only a two-year contract.
It's been a gutsy call but the Hawks have finished the year on a high, despite winning just five games.
Today's team, for example, has seven first-year players. And unless they upset Sydney – which is not out of the question – the Hawks will get at least two more quality kids in the next draft.
All this adds up to why Hawthorn looks capable of leapfrogging Richmond (and many others) for an extended crack at a flag in the near future.
Just as St Kilda did last year.
Hawthorn has a heap of young talent. Roughead, Thurgood, Miller, Lewis, Brennan, Dawson, Hodge, Taylor, Brown and Campbell have all shown plenty this year and will complement the more experienced Mitchell, Bateman, Williams, Osborne and Co. much more quickly than expected.
Not only are they talented, but they have big frames, which will become big bodies, and an enormous running capacity, which nearly got them over the line last week.
The picture looks even brighter if you look past Richmond and compare Hawthorn with Carlton and Collingwood.
However, there is one rider: Spida Everitt. He is the best ruckman since Simon Madden and his performance since switching to Glenferrie has been exceptional.
Simon Taylor and Robert Campbell are both heading in the right direction, but Spida is much more than your everyday ruckman and remains the key to any flag in Jeff Kennett's three-year plan.
At 31, and given his talent as a forward, he still has a number of good years left.
The Hawks have been very disciplined about their rebuilding, taking a methodical, unemotional approach which has concentrated on the foundations – just as St Kilda did under Grant Thomas.
In any war there are casualties and, in this case, Nick Holland has been sacrificed.
Clarkson refused to compromise his pursuit of the next flag. He has well and truly drawn a line in the sand knowing full well his team will not rise off the bottom until his group of youngsters determines it will.
In the meantime he will continue to add to the foundations, keep playing his kids and, when they mature as a unit, look out.
Over at Punt Rd, the way forward is not so clear-cut. Richmond has worked its way off the bottom only to find itself in murky mid-ladder waters. In effect, Wallace has been punished for his success, robbed by bad luck and a bad system.
Bad luck – read Nathan Brown's broken leg – cost him a spot in the finals.
And the system, which provides priority picks in the first round of the draft, gives clubs too much incentive to finish low and not enough reward for clubs that rebound to the middle of the pack.
The commission had a chance to change it last year, but didn't. What is it waiting for?
You could argue that Wallace could have taken the Clarkson approach and played the likes of Daniel Jackson, Tom Roach, Kelvin Moore, Andrew Raines and Danny Meyer more at the expense of senior players, but that would have ensured a season without the highs the Tigers have experienced.
And Richmond needed some success this year to mend the divisions that a lack of success had caused.
It's amazing to think that had Brown and Kellaway stayed in one piece, they were a silly chance of winning the flag. But the reality of their current position is confronting.
Wallace has unearthed some very talented players but, as a group, their exposed form is not as impressive as Hawthorn's.
He faces some difficult decisions over the next few weeks. He has already alerted us to the major hole in his list, but does he recruit for a finals berth next year and an outside chance at the flag or "do a Clarko" and cut to the bone, recruit only kids at the draft and build from the bottom for a sustained run at the top down the track?
Whatever his choice it's going to take all of his (and Greg Miller's) experience to continue the great improvement over the next few years as Richo, Gaspar and Co. retire.
It's not so complicated at Glenferrie Oval. The Hawks have worked the system beautifully and decided that if they were going to bottom out they would take a double dose of medicine, so the next time they began talking about flags they'd have the players to back it up.
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