David King has broken down the surprising positional move Hawthorn made to stifle West Coast’s forward line on Saturday night.
The Hawks stunned the Eagles at Optus Stadium, beating them by 38 points and knocking them out of the top four.
King said Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson used Ben McEvoy at full back for the majority of the game to take Josh Kennedy and Jack Darling’s contested marking strength out of the game.
“Do you know who played full back on the weekend for the Hawks? Ben McEvoy,” he told SEN’s Whateley.
“He spent most of his night at full back.
“This is why we talk about Clarko the way we do. Can you even think of putting a ruckman – I know he’s been there in patches over the last few weeks – but he stood Jack Darling and stood Josh Kennedy for large chunks of the night. It was an amazing performance.
“Whilst they got off the chain at times, any time a high ball came in, the big fella just crashed the pack. They were not going to get beaten by contested marking forwards in the West Coast forward 50.
“I think it was outstanding coaching. He just said to Jon Ceglar, you’re rucking against Tom Hickey and you’re going the whole game with him and we’ll work out what happens outside of that.
“The Hawks were then able to orchestrate James Frawley in front in that leading lane, James Sicily in those leading lanes. They had them covered. If they wanted to go inside 50, they had to go with the high ball back to McEvoy’s strength.
“Everyone would say, as if you’re playing McEvoy on Kennedy. He’ll beat him on the lead. Well he would beat him on the lead, but where’s he going to lead? Into the back of one of those other guys.”
King looks to West Coast’s Elimination Final clash with Essendon and whether the Bombers can do something similar.
“It was outstanding coaching. If I’m coaching against the Eagles, I’m saying how can we do that? Can John Worsfold be flexible enough to look at that?” he said.
“Can he say what assets have we got? Can we have Cale Hooker playing ruck and dropping back and doing a similar role? It worked. You’d be a fool to not look at what worked.”