Hawks crush Dogs

Taunting and demoralising his Bulldogs opponents much as Usain Bolt was able to do to his rivals in Beijing, Lance Franklin has fired Hawthorn into an AFL Preliminary Final with an eight-goal master class at the MCG on Friday night.

Franklin was too fast, too tall, too skilful and too strong for Dale Morris and Brian Lake, though he could be triple-teamed by Jack Regan, David Dench and Matthew Scarlett and still come out ahead on his current form.

While the Coleman Medalist, who took his season tally to 110, applied the killer blows with his customary infusion of razzle dazzle in the 18.19 (127) to 11.10 (76) win, he had great support up forward from Michael Osborne and Jarryd Roughead who bagged seven between them.

In the midfield, Brad Sewell and skipper Sam Mitchell both had 30-plus touches, while Luke Hodge was the Hawks' puppeteer in defence, pulling the right strings all night.

For the Bulldogs, Daniel Cross racked-up a match-high 39 touches, but lacked support in a midfield that was second to the contest throughout.

And when the Bulldogs did get their hands on the ball, they overused it. Incredibly for a team that lost by 51 points, the Dogs had 423 possessions to Hawthorn's 347 and outmarked the Hawks 137 to 114.

The Hawks, however, dominated the stats that counted including the inside-50s - 55 to 41.

Franklin may not be as quick as Bolt (then again, he might), but he's the Olympic sprint champion's equal in terms of presence, power, aesthetics and an ability to make the impossible appear ridiculously easy.

And both could justifiably mount a case - at the tender age of 21 - to being the best there's ever been in their respective fields.

The Hawks seized the initiative early with a four-goal to two opening term and built a 44-point half-time buffer on the strength of six second-term goals.

Franklin paved the way with five of his own in the first half including four from open play, but it was Osborne's two just before half-time that transformed an imposing lead into a match-winning one.

And when the Bulldogs scored the first two goals of the second half through Jason Akermanis and Josh Hill, it was Osborne who killed off their nascent revival with two in four minutes.

The second of those goals was achieved through sheer force of will as he shrugged a vice-like tackle from Tim Callan to slot it from close range.

When Roughead followed up with his second and Franklin his sixth, the lead had blown out to 58 points and it was game over.

The task for Alastair Clarkson, who was without the services of Trent Croad with a foot injury from late in the second quarter, was to make sure the remaining 21 made it through to the final siren unscathed.

They only just made it to the line as Rick Ladson (shoulder), Grant Birchall (corked hip) and Cameron Stokes (leg) all finished the match with injury issues.

The Hawks jump straight to a Preliminary Final in two weeks while the Bulldogs advance to a semi-final next weekend where they'll play the winner of Saturday night's Elimination Final between Sydney and North Melbourne.

HAWTHORN: 4.5, 10.12, 15.17, 18.19 (127)
WESTERN BULLDOGS: 2.1, 4.4, 7.7, 11.10 (76)

GOALS: Hawthorn: Franklin 8, Osborne 4, Roughead 3, Brown, Crawford, Lewis
Western Bulldogs: Akermanis 3, Giansiracusa 2, Hill 2,