HAWTHORN's Cyril Rioli is in the running for the AFL Mark of the Year award for his sensational, high-flying grab over Geelong defender Harry Taylor in the third quarter of Friday night's clash at the MCG.
Rioli, in his debut season, tracked a high ball coming out of the Hawks defence on the wing and was outnumbered two to one when he chanced his arm and leapt on Taylor's back to take the attention-grabbing mark.
Incredibly, Rioli's nomination is Indigenous football's 31st such nomination in the AFL mark and goal of the year award.
* Voting is open from the Monday after each round through to the following Sunday night. The nominated marks and goals can be viewed at
AFL.com.au/markgoal.
Near enough is not good enough: Bateman
HAWTHORN'S Chance Bateman has seen the review tapes of the Hawks' Friday night game with Geelong and declared that 'near enough is not good enough' if his side wishes to be a serious challenger for this year's flag.
The Hawks lost by 11 points in an intriguing match but could have snatched victory if not for costly turnovers and wasted opportunities in front of goal, with team-mate Lance Franklin the main culprit, the gun forward booting 4.5, many of those misses from set shots.
Friday night showed us that we've still got a lot of work to do before we can really become one of the premier sides in the competition," Bateman told
HawthornFC.com.au.
Still, he was able to find many positives from his team's courageous performance.
One of the positives we can take out of the game is that the reason we lost had a lot to do with things we can control," Bateman said. "Our skill level wasn't up to scratch on the night and some pretty costly turnovers in the end cost us the game. Our endeavour and our pressure was right up there, and as good as Geelong's was."
Hawthorn take on Collingwood in another big Friday night match.
Collingwood are very experienced at playing in front of those crowds, so they don't get overawed at all," Bateman said. "They're going to be looking to redeem themselves after their loss to Essendon at the weekend."
DARREN MONCRIEFF
AboriginalFootball@westnet.com.au
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Last Modified on 30/07/2008 23:15