SCRAPPY HAWKS: WHAT THE HECK’S UP AT HAWTHORN?
A MISERABLE weekend for Hawthorn on the field was eclipsed by utter stupidity off it.
The Hawks lost to Essendon, their season is teetering and their short-term future appears bleak. If Carlton can prise Alastair Clarkson away, then bleak becomes dark.
The captain Ben Stratton will face the tribunal tonight and plead guilty to pinching and stomping.
The club has already condemned Stratton’s actions, the footy world jumped on, and tonight will be more about what Stratton says to explain himself than what the penalty is.
The frustration of being a first-year captain in a struggling team might be just too heavy for him. Or he’s a bully. Or he’s both. It was stupid from the skipper, but arguably not the most stupid action to come out of Hawthorn after the loss to the Bombers. That prize goes to the club president, Jeff Kennett.
Supporter angst is real and can’t be ignored, so much so AFL boss Gillon McLachlan and Marvel Stadium chief executive Michael Green met at AFL headquarters yesterday.
A balance has to be found between what the orange coats believe to be unruly behaviour and what supporters believe to be barracking.
It’s agreed that the use of Fs and Cs is unacceptable, but at the same time, we can’t have a fan told to sit down and stop barracking, which one woman claimed happened to her at the weekend.
Enter Kennett.
Whenever anyone starts a sentence with, “I’m not being racist when I say this, but ... ’’, well, it’s always going to get interesting.
The president described the security staff at Marvel Stadium as “new arrivals’’ and said those patrolling the crowds and judging behaviour had a poor knowledge of AFL.
“I’m not being racist when I say this, but when I saw some of the footage, the people who are making judgments while they wear these authoritative coats are not people who appear to have a great knowledge of our game,’’ Kennett told 3AW.
“They are new arrivals to Australia, it appears. We don’t know that and they could be born here.”
How does that in anyway help the current combustible situation, a club president using race to attack the security and by extension the AFL?
The mob is already up in arms about being told what to do and how to act, and Kennett has only added fuel.
Just imagine if it was Eddie McGuire and not Kennett who offered such commentary. It would be front-page news.
The AFL would be bewildered by Kennett’s comments. Maybe even the Hawks. After the Stratton incidents, Hawks chief executive Justin Reeves issued a statement which said, in effect, the behaviour of the skipper didn’t align with the values of the Family Club.
Reeves should issue the same statement, swapping Stratton’s name for Kennett’s.
It won’t happen, of course, but maybe it should.