Hard tagged and run ragged: how Hawthorn derailed Collingwood star Nick Daicos | Jonathan Horn


By trusting tagger Finn Maginness, Hawks coach Sam Mitchell gifted every AFL team a blueprint on how to do it

There’s a chapter in Tony Wilson’s book about the 1989 Grand Final that focuses on Scott Maginness, Hawthorn’s young chiropractic student slated to play on Geelong’s Gary Ablett. The Cats star was in murderous touch, fresh from a preposterous eight-goal performance in the Preliminary Final. “You’re wanting to not make a fool of yourself,” Maginness tells Wilson. “You want all those things you’ve always dreamed about, but know at any point it could all go horribly pear-shaped.”

He arrives home and tells his two brothers who he’s playing on. “Oh shit,” they say in unison.

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