He was often caught well behind May, who was close to the best in the field with 13 marks among his 25 possessions.
Rhys Stanley from the Cats and Max Gawn from the Demons.Credit: AFL photos
“To measure his influence on our team just by goals, I think that's a sexy stat,” Scott said. “The last few weeks we have played well enough without Hawk dominating the scoreboard.
“What would we have in a perfect world? I think in a perfect world, we'd have four, five, six guys down there that are real threats. Over the years, for a decade or two, maybe we've been too aware of Hawkins and he's a victim of what he's done in the past.”
This is not a walk to death Hawkins, one of the best to put in the hoops, or to put heat in his place next to the cats. There is no manager in the league who dares to put their number two defender in Hawkins, who makes life easier for Ollie Henry and gives his manager the luxury of playing Jeremy Cameron.
Scott acknowledged in his postgame press conference that the 35-year-old Hawkins doesn't move as freely as he once did. Already rested once this year, Hawkins will likely be managed again during the season, Scott said.
“You can dig a little deeper, but I think you're on the right track as far as your gut,” Scott said when asked if Hawkins was reaching that many contests.
“It's more than just the numbers, but my suggestion would be that you've watched him at the height of his powers, and now the observation is that he's not quite what he used to be.
“But when he threw a couple of four bags earlier in the year, he looked more like himself to me. Maybe a little off, but it's not a physical thing. But we've been clear that we're going to manage him all year.”
The Demons, despite their obvious limitations in front of goal, are the real deal.
They are far from the complete team, but in such an even competition they may not need to be to lift the cup.
This felt like a significant win for the 23 red-blue on the field. It was certainly a big deal for manager Simon Goodwin's planning.
This was very much a Melbourne game, where every possession is hard-fought, ground hard to come by and goals at a premium, although 14 in a row wouldn't have been in any manager's plans.
Just a week earlier, Goodwin had watched the Cats dismantle Carlton on the bounce despite being soundly beaten in the elimination, also one of Melbourne's strengths.
Goodwin planned an arm wrestle. He got one and won.
By introducing their forward 50 with a more deliberate approach, they gave up some scoring power, but certainly got more out of the Cat, who were denied the opportunity to counter-attack at speed by a defensive structure still to ride
From 50 innings, the Cats managed just nine goals. Last week, they scored twice as many forward raids. Ten goals was a winning result.
“You come in with an idea of how the opposition plays, you tweak your own game plan to take away a couple of strengths from them without losing your identity as a football team,” Jack Viney said.
“We felt like we were well prepared going into this game, and it told us how we prepared.”
