It is the boozy address that helped transform Tom Hawkins from a boy into a man and provided the confidence boost that has elevated him to the company of Geelong’s all-time greats.
“Your workload is about to increase. Get to as many contests as you can. Move. Start presenting. Don’t wait for it to be kicked on your head,” Mooney told Hawkins. “I have said from then on that Geelong would not have won that premiership if I had played. Hawk was the difference. He really was. I mean, Jimmy Bartel won the Norm Smith , but Hawk was the difference and there is no way in the world I would have been able to do what Hawk did that day.
He seized the lead again later in the same quarter when marking a long kick in from Paul Chapman. Shortly before three-quarter time in wet conditions, Hawkins had the poise to soccer another goal through on his left foot to give the Cats a seven-point lead. A son of former Geelong defender John “Jumping Jack” Hawkins, as a boy he dashed around the family farm in Finley pretending to be Cats legend Gary Ablett Snr.
It was a message he passed on to former Australian Test cricketer Paul Sheahan, who at the time was the vice-principal of Melbourne Grammar, when he left the farm for boarding school. And the dream was understandable for the big boy from the bush. He had to drop some weight but debuted with such distinction in Rd 2 of 2007 against Carlton when kicking three goals that Blues coach Denis Pagan predicted he would become a great.
But some self-doubt remained and in the winter of 2011 Hawkins was languishing in the reserves, pondering whether he would fulfil the potential he showed as a teenager. He and Ablett Snr are the only players aged 30 or older to make four All Australian teams, but Hawkins actually has an edge on his boyhood idol when it comes to some career honours including premierships and leading goalkicker awards at Geelong.
“There was a time … that Tom was struggling a little bit physically but it also occurred through a period of time where I think there was a sense that … maybe the days of the big strong key forward were numbered,” Scott said. It is no surprise the occasional suspensions he incurred through a five-year occurred during a period he described as the “toughest part of my career”, with Hawkins acknowledging the death of his mum had an impact on how he handled his emotions on and off the field.
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