The Kennett curse was the name given to

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

club 's dominance against rival in the period between Hawthorn's upset win against Geelong in the

2008 AFL Grand Final The 2008 AFL Grand Final was an Australian rules football match contested between the Geelong Football Club and the Hawthorn Football Club, held at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in Melbourne on 27 September 2008. It was the 112th annual grand fi ...

and Hawthorn's win in the 2013 preliminary finals.

Background

Geelong and Hawthorn contested the 2008 AFL Grand Final. Geelong went into the match as the favourites; they were the defending premiers, and had lost only one match for the entire season; however, Hawthorn prevailed by 26 points to claim its 10th premiership. Ahead of the teams' first-round meeting at the start of the 2009 season, then-Hawthorn president

Jeff Kennett Jeffrey Gibb Kennett (born 2 March 1948) is a former Australian politician who was the 43rd Premier of Victoria between 1992 and 1999, and currently a media commentator. He was previously the president of the Hawthorn Football Club, serving ...

publicly questioned Geelong's mental drive to defeat Hawthorn. Additionally, following the upset Grand Final loss, Geelong players made a private pact, which was later made public by Paul Chapman, to never again lose to Hawthorn.Forget The Kennett Curse, it should be renamed the Chapman Factor , News.com.au
/ref> Following Kennett's comments, Geelong won the match in Round 1, 2009, and proceeded to defeat Hawthorn in eleven successive matches: a run that included a number of close games and come-from-behind victories that seemed to highlight the existence of the so-called 'curse'. During this 11-game run, Geelong won two Premierships, one in 2009, and another in 2011 which included a 31-point Qualifying Final win over Hawthorn. Kennett's demeaning comments in 2009 came to be seen as the initiating event of a

curse A curse (also called an imprecation, malediction, execration, malison, anathema, or commination) is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to one or more persons, a place, or an object. In particular, ...

on Hawthorn, dubbed by fans and media as the "Kennett curse". Kennett himself (who stepped down from the Hawthorn presidency in 2011) said in 2013 that while he was not proud of what he had said, he did not wish he could take it back. The curse ended with Hawthorn finally defeating Geelong by 5 points in the thrilling 2013 First Preliminary Final, after Kennett's reign as Hawthorn president had ended. Hawthorn then went on to win the Grand Final the following week. Ironically, Paul Chapman, the player who first mentioned the Geelong players 'pact' to never lose to Hawthorn, played his last game for Geelong a week before the Hawthorn game, having missed the Preliminary Final due to suspension.

Results

Over the period of the curse, the rivalry between the clubs remained strong. All matches were played at the

Melbourne Cricket Ground The Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), also known locally as "The 'G", is an Australian sports stadium located in Yarra Park, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, Victoria. Founded and managed by the Melbourne Cricket Club, it is the largest stadiu ...

, drew at least 63,000 spectators, and although Geelong won all eleven matches, most matches were close and/or involved one team coming from a long way behind. Nine of the eleven matches were decided by ten points or less, and five by less than a goal (six points), with two decided by kicks after the final siren: Round 17, 2009, with a behind to

Jimmy Bartel James Ross Bartel (born 4 December 1983) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Geelong Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL). A utility, tall and weighing , Bartel contributed as a midfielder, forward, an ...

; and Round 19, 2012, with a goal to Tom Hawkins. The Cats' 11-match winning streak against the Hawks is the longest by any team following a VFL/AFL Grand Final loss to their opponent. Source
Footy Wire
The losing streak ended as follows: The curse looked to continue, with Geelong leading by 19 points midway through the final quarter, but Hawthorn rallied and kicked three goals and seven behinds to Geelong's solitary point to overrun the Cats by 5 points.http://www.afl.com.au/news/2013-09-20/hawks-stop-the-streak Hawks stop the streak Paul Chapman, who earlier had publicised the Geelong players' pact never to lose to Hawthorn, missed the preliminary final due to suspension. He was then traded to

Essendon Essendon may refer to: Australia *Electoral district of Essendon *Electoral district of Essendon and Flemington *Essendon, Victoria **Essendon railway station **Essendon Airport *Essendon Football Club in the Australian Football League United King ...

at the end of the season.

Aftermath

The rivalry still produces exciting games and routinely draws crowds of 63,000+ to each game (the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

notwithstanding). The following year, Geelong beat the Hawks by 19 points in Round 5 but then were blown out in their Qualifying Final to the Hawks two weeks after losing to the Hawks by 23. Those were the first half of four straight Hawthorn wins through

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the Apri ...

. The Cats did win their most recent finals meeting, a qualifying final, in

2016 File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...

by 2 points. During the home-and-away games since 2016, Geelong has had an overall edge, with Geelong's five wins to Hawthorn's three, including the last three wins.

References

External links

Game by game: Four years of the Kennett curse
''Geelong Advertiser'', 5 July 2013
The 'Kennett Curse' has nothing on these long-running sporting curses from around the world
''Fox Sports'', 18 September 2013
A mathematical formula for predicting Kennett curse explained

Notes