Hawthorn great Jordan Lewis admits the ‘Kennett curse’ became an elephant in the room at Waverley Park during a horror losing streak against Geelong after the 2008 premiership win.
The Cats defeated Alastair Clarkson’s men 11 times in a row from 2009 until the 2013 preliminary final, where the Hawks fought back from 19 points down in the last quarter to seal a spot in that year’s Grand Final.
The nightmare streak was dubbed the ‘Kennett curse’ after Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett questioned Geelong’s mental strength ahead of the first encounter between the two sides after the Hawks shocked the Cats in the 2008 decider.
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“What they don’t have, I think, is the quality of some of our players; they don’t have the psychological drive we have. We’ve beaten Geelong when it matters,” Kennett famously said in March 2009.
Lewis, who won four premierships at the Hawks during his decorated career, said the group never discussed the ‘Kennett curse’ until then football boss and current Brisbane coach Chris Fagan addressed the situation in the year Hawthorn ended the losing streak and went on to win the flag.
Lance Franklin celebrates a goal in the game that ended the ‘Kennett curse’.Source: News Limited
“We never spoke about it as a group until early 2013 when we lost that game,” Lewis told Fox Footy Live on Thursday night.
“Chris Fagan is the one who really drove it.
“He said: What are we going to do? We’re going to face this side later in the year, let’s get this right out on the table now and talk about what it means to us and what has happened the last 11 times.”
Lewis believes players tried too hard to be the man to end the streak when they should have been more focused on executing their roles.
“It is there in the background, but you don’t necessarily as a player think about it in depth,” he said.
“It was one of those things in all of those games where if we were to drill down on one thing, that game probably meant too much to us.
“So guys were trying too hard; guys were trying to win it off their own boot, to the point where if this game’s close you’ve just got to continue to play your role.
“It was always little things. Stuff like Puopolo tries to snap it over his shoulder from the boundary line. Now what you would see Hawthorn players do is take it over the boundary, don’t try and bring it back in, especially when the game is close – use that as your friend.”
