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When Jack Ginnivan kicked his second goal in two minutes to put Hawthorn ahead by 42 points midway through the third quarter at Engie Stadium on Saturday, Greater Western Sydney was staring down the barrel of another September failure.
It felt decisive. Nothing was working for the Giants. One of their best players to that point, Darcy Jones, had not long earlier hobbled off in tears with a suspected ACL tear. The Hawks, seemingly, had all the answers, and their fans were readying for a Friday night in Adelaide. And Ginnivan was gleefully rubbing it in their faces.
What happened next was extraordinary.
They call it the ‘Orange Tsunami’, and when it’s in full force, it really is something to behold. The atmosphere shifted - first slowly, then suddenly. Roles reversed. The visitors started panicking, the Giants could sense that, and it became self-fulfilling.
By the time any of the 20,634 fans in attendance had a chance to draw a breath, GWS had kicked six goals in 15 minutes, some of them just ridiculous, and the deficit was six points. The driver was Josh Kelly, the veteran who was playing his first game since the last time the Giants pulled out party tricks to this extent - in the last Sydney derby, when they turned over another big deficit in staggering style at this very venue.
Named as the substitute, Kelly came on for Jones and took the game by the scruff of the neck, racking up 14 disposals (nine of them contested), six clearances, and two goals in that third quarter.
Toby Greene and the Giants fell short against Hawthorn.Credit: Getty Images
That’s the funny thing about momentum in footy, though. You’ve got to make the most of it while you’ve got it because you can lose it just as quickly as you find it. Jesse Hogan booted the first goal of the last quarter, making it a one-point ball game. But the hosts couldn’t find another six-pointer.
And after a tense, 15-minute arm wrestle, the Hawks pulled out the brass knuckles and landed the decisive blow.
Goals from Sam Butler and then Mabior Chol knocked the Giants onto their haunches. Now they were panicking, making rash decisions, wasting their chances. The Hawks dug in. Jake Riccardi hit the post before Chol snapped another with just 17 seconds left on the clock. Then the siren went.
Hawthorn prevailed by 19 points, 16.11 (107) to 13.10 (88), to move through to the semi-finals for a second successive year. It was way closer than the scoreboard suggests - and yet still so far for the Giants.
That this was an instant classic - one of the best games of the year, if not the best - will be cold comfort to Adam Kingsley’s men, who were brave but still beaten. They poured their hearts out, but the reality is they have stumbled, again, at the crucial moment. For a third successive season. And for many of their senior players who are still chasing that elusive first flag, time is rapidly running out.
In a game of such fine margins, thoughts will turn to the moments where they mugged themselves: the blaze of ill-discipline which allowed Hawthorn to gallop away in the first place, with four of their seven first-quarter goals coming directly from free kicks.
More to come ...
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