Buddy's night after Hawks bounce back

Written by Andrew Clark

Sunday, 08 June 2008 08:16

Hawthorn has bounced back, after a round 10 loss to the Bulldogs, in convincing fashion to record a 51-point win over Essendon at Telstra Dome last night.

The Hawks welcomed back Luke Hodge who played is first game in 5 weeks after he injured his hamstring against the Magpies back in round 7. Hodge's return was nothing less than spectacular, with the midfielder picking up 22 possessions.

The match was anyones up to half time with the Hawks struggling to assert their dominance on the game early in the peace. The performance after the break was a different story though. The Hawks booted 10 goals to Essendon's four after half time to turn a narrow half time lead into a blow-out win, with Chance Bateman and Michael Osborne joining Franklin and Hodge among the best.

Essendon's Andrew Welsh headed for Hawthorn skipper Sam Mitchell at the first bounce, and applied a hard tag that would restrict the Hawk to just two possessions in the first quarter. Wherever Mitchell went, Welsh followed, and it was a duel that had everything including an off-the-ball incident in the second term that saw the Hawks' captain grounded and his teammates remonstrating with Welsh.

The match-up ended with 13 possessions apiece to both players, but that wasn't where the engaging one-on-one contests ended.

Paddy Ryder was given the job on Franklin, with the Hawks' star out-running, out-marking and out-playing Ryder in a sometimes spiteful clash.. Buddy ended up piling on 9 goals to equal his best individual effort in front of goals, which he achieved against the Bombers in round 6 last season.

Jarryd Roughead, who had been curtailed by Fletcher for the first half, booted two when the Bombers' veteran was minding Franklin, who added a brace to his tally in the match-defining quarter. Tim Boyle and Osborne contributed the other goals for the term.

Osborne's, which came at the 22 -minute mark, was reminiscent of Port Adelaide's Daniel Motlop's dribbling left-foot special from the boundary from last weekend.

Hawthorn will now travel to Adelaide to meet the Crows at AAMI Stadium on Saturday night.

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