Paula Xiberras
Wikipedia tells us that hawks have been known for ‘their sharp vision, able hunting abilities’ and that they ‘take birds as their primary prey’ and over the weekend the hunting hawks did indeed take some birds, in the form of eagles as their prey and showed their sharp vision that could stay focused to complete three consecutive premiership wins.
Several weeks before the final series I spoke to Martin Blake, author of the book ‘Mighty Fighting Hawks’.
Martin has been a frequent visitor to Tasmania both covering cricket at Bellerive oval and the footy at Launceston. As a golfer he’s a big fan of Barnbougle Dunes in Bridport which he believes is one of a handful of the best courses in Australia.
Barnbougle may be one of the best dunes in the country but when it comes to top clubs in any sport and one of the handful of the best ever Aussie rules teams Martin believes Hawthorn can claim the mantle.
The Tassie Hawks have put their talon print and their talent into the history books as the most successful AFL team with 13 flags between 1961 and 2015 compared to fan favourite Collingwood who has only claimed 2 in the last 50 years
One of the contributing factors to the team’s success is coach Alistair Clarkson who has brought to the team his background as an educator, knowledge gained in a course at Harvard as well as the ability to source strategies from other sports such as the ‘zoning defence system’ from basketball and his employment of ‘rolling zones’ from soccer.
Alistair has attempted to build ‘courage, resilience and mateship’ from putting his team through a diverse range of experiences such as walking Kokoda to a meditation on Buddha’s four pillars, which are, ‘teaching, practice, trust and realisation’.
Some of the now familiar tactics Alistair has employed as part of his game plan including the drawing of a shark to spurn the team on against Geelong, the floured white line and the empty trophy case, designed to needle and inspire.
Important to Alistair himself, and something that is instilled in the team are the values of ‘family, loyalty and humility’ and to quote one of the other catch phrases ‘to leave their ego on the hook’. The team, also says Martin, has embraced their Tassie Hawk connection with more than just the usual ‘lip service’ and proudly wear Tasmania above their hearts.
‘The Mighty Fighting Hawks’ by Martin Blake is out now published by Penguin.
