Former Melbourne captain Garry Lyon has criticised Hawthorn skipper James Sicily’s lack of defensive accountability early in the Hawks’ 30-point upset loss to Port Adelaide.
In the first half, Hawthorn trailed the Power by as many as 71 points before staging a mini comeback to ensure a closer contest later in the game.
Lyon cited damning vision of Sicily — who later transitioned into attack to avoid Sam Powell-Pepper attention — in the first half pointing for one of his teammates to cover his opponent who ended up kicking a goal.
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Lyon said on Monday’s edition of AFL 360 Sicily showed “blatant disregard” by choosing not to follow his opponent, Powell-Pepper.
“I don’t want to take anything away from Port Adelaide, but they (the Hawks) were lamentable,” Lyon began on AFL 360 of the Hawks’ performance.
“And it started with their captain. The captain has to set the standard; he’s the one who found himself in the middle of it. I’m thinking, he’s the one who’s got to juice himself up here and get it sorted.
“Powell-Pepper went to him, and he (Sicily) just had a blatant disregard.”
Vision played of an unimpeded Powell-Pepper running off Sicily, who then pointed for teammate Tom Barrass to cover him. Barrass didn’t get to Powell-Pepper in time, and the Port forward snapped a straightforward goal.
“Look (at him pointing) — what’s that? That sends a message early in a game to the rest of the team (that) ‘it’s not my problem’ or ‘I can’t be bothered doing what I need to do as a captain’,” Lyon continued.
“His ball use was horrible. And I thought the two recruits, Battle and Barrass, were off early. Their communication and their willingness to work hard just wasn’t there. Battle’s playing 10, 15 metres off (his opponent), so that didn’t work.”
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Lyon was also critical of Josh Weddle’s lost concentration in defence in a passage of play that resulted in a Power major.
“And then you see this situation with Weddle. What’s Weddle doing here? What does Weddle do? He runs straight past (Mitch) Georgiades, who’s got some separation, and gets caught in no man’s land,” Lyon said.
“I could have had a hundred (examples). So, this will be great for Sam Mitchell, because that was appalling, what they threw out. They didn’t have it a crack in the first half. They got bullied; they got pushed aside.
“And the fact they were able to recover and get to within 22 (points) is even more reason why you’d look at it and go ‘that is a pathetic first half of footy’, because we saw what they’re capable of — they just didn’t want to invest.
“James Sicily (pointing) going ‘you get him’ summed the whole half up. (He thought) ‘I’m the captain of the club, not my problem’. Well, it is your problem — he (Powell-Pepper) went straight to you, and in the end, you had to get down the other end (in the forward-line) just to get away from him.”
Lyon explained the silver lining of the disappointing loss; in that it served as a wake-up call, adding that Sicily won’t be caught pointing next Monday against the Cats.
“This is why it’s not the end of the world. In fact, I think it’s good for Hawthorn,” he said.
“James Sicily will respond against Geelong, it’ll sharpen them all up, and I’ll guarantee you, I won’t come back in here ever again if in the first three minutes of that game James Sicily points at whoever he’s on and says: ‘someone else get him’.
“It just won’t happen.”
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