Hawthorn v Carlton Rd 20

Thursday, July 24 – 7:30 PM AEST – Venue: MCG

Hawthorn have too much to play for to lose this match. There’s 4 sides on 48 points and they will likely finish 4^th – 7^th the question is in which order. Percentage may be important too, so if the Hawks get on a roll they will keep the foot down to not only get the 4 points, but to boost their percentage too.

After playing his best game for the year in the win over the Dee’s, Blues champion Sam Docherty will play his last game and he is so well respected by the players you’d expect them to be up and about and willing to apply the same level of pressure that dismantled the Demons last week.

Weitering’s 200^th game is further motivation and Curnow’s possible move the Gold Coast next year means he needs to impress the Suns recruiters. Harry McKay will return to the forward line alongside Ashton Moir – rising star nominee last week – which will allow Moir to get the third or fourth best defender, if Tom De Koning plays forward in patches. The smalls in Motlop, Fogarty and Durdin also need to kick goals if the Blues are any chance. It won’t be easy though against the Hawks backs in Barrass, Battle, Impy and Sicily.

The Hawks have excellent talls and smalls up forward too in Gunston, Lewis, Watson, Ginnivan, Impy (if they send him forward again this week after kicking 3.1 in the last quarter last week), Moore and Dear and they don’t turn the ball over anywhere near as much as Carlton. Will Day is expected to be back for his first game in a long time. The ruck battle will be interesting too with Pittonet and De Koning taking on Lloyd Meek, with Dear helping out too. Pittonet will need to take marks around the ground if he expects to be the No. 1 ruck after TDK leaves for St Kilda at the end of the year.

If the Blues don’t bring their pressure game this could get ugly, but surely they’ll do it for Doc and Weiters.

Hawks by 21 points

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