Sam Mitchell made a rare mistake early in Thursday night’s win against Sydney.
He started the game with Josh Battle on Charlie Curnow and Tom Barrass on Joel Amartey.
You can understand it. Amartey is nowhere near as threatening as Curnow, which would allow Barrass to zone off and help Hawthorn’s intercept mark game which is the backbone of their defence, and Battle can go with Curnow’s mobility.
Do you see the mistake?
Mitchell thought he was playing Curnow from 2023.
Curnow in 2026 is a much different, far less threatening animal.
Taking his cues from the lululemon girls on the Bondi to Bronte walk, Curnow seems to have spent the offseason getting hot girl fit. He looks massive compared to a couple of years ago, and as a result spent the first quarter parking himself in front of Josh Battle, immovable, finishing with two early goals.
That bulk may be a response to sapped athleticism after years of knee injuries. Where he once won with movement, Curnow, like some other powers, now seems to think it’s about peace through strength.
After half time, Hawthorn changed their defensive approach, sweating on handball receivers rather than ball carriers, clogging up the corridor, and setting their defence a little bit deeper to give Sydney a little less room to run. If you can clog up Sydney’s handball and rebound off half back game, you basically kill them. They’re a bit like Derek Zoolander at this point: they can only do one pose.
Mitchell also, crucially, moved into 2026 and put Barrass onto Curnow.
Curnow couldn’t move Barrass the way he shifted Battle early, and with the added bulk and/or injuries, he no longer has the separation speed to win on movement. Once Hawthorn adjusted, his avenues to impact disappeared.
After three disposals through the final three quarters of the game, Curnow seemed to stop trying as he got beaten to the ball by the allegedly slower Tom Barrass, including one moment right at the end of the game where he simply got outjumped.
Even in terms of defensive pressure, right at the end of a close game Curnow made the generally laconic Logan McDonald look like Daniel Day Lewis in terms of intensity.
It was a poor game for Curnow. But bigger than that, Curnow doesn’t seem to be the player that Sydney set up their system for.
Sydney wants to play a run and gun, 7 seconds or less Swans kind of game where they handball heavily and try to finish off chains in the hands Nick Blakey or Chad Warner in space so they can take grass.
Invariably, Sydney keeps the ground long with Curnow deep to give him plenty of room to work.
As a result, Curnow has no responsibilities outside of getting the ball inside 50 and kicking goals. He’s almost Ben King like. He’s currently averaging 7.7 disposals inside forward 50, and 2.3 inside attacking midfield.
He’s getting less than half a disposal outside of his forward half.
They set up a Cox’s Corral, if you will.
Compare that to his career at Carlton where he had far more responsibility to roam up the ground and bail out his defence with bullocking work on the wing. Since 2022, he’s always averaged at least 2 disposals in defensive midfield a game.
But Curnow just doesn’t move like that anymore. Despite being outside of Carlton’s clogged up attacking system and in a system that should set him up to lead at the ball, Curnow is averaging 1.3 marks on the lead per game. If it holds, it would be his worst mark since 2019. He’s also taking fewer marks inside 50 than he has since 2021.
Most importantly, he’s having no scoreboard impact. He’s kicked just five goals through three games this year and is having his lowest scoreboard impact again since 2021 when he played just four games, providing just 11.7 points per game.
Closely tied to Sydney’s ball movement is their turnover game. Sydney is third in expected score off turnover because they are able to get turnovers in good positions and are extremely aggressive off those turnovers.
To get to number 1 on that list they need to play a better pressure game, but Curnow, less mobile and seemingly sulking, just isn’t chipping in. Never mistaken for Cyril Rioli in terms of defensive effort, Curnow is having his lowest pressure act season for his career.
I said at the beginning of the season that Curnow has broken his promise to footy by failing to live up to his enormous potential. I didn’t expect this season to go well, just as I don’t expect his Sydney career to live up to the hype. But this has been worse than I expected.
Now, none of this to say it’s terminal for Sydney’s chances. Despite their big-ticket attraction being terrible for the first three games, Sydney are 2-1 and gave Hawthorn all they could handle without Gulden and Heeney.
Dean Cox has massively modernised his game and has regularly pulled the right levers, Justin McInerney’s rolling roles have been proof of that. But for them to seriously threaten, they need to find a secondary method and they need all of their highly paid players to play well. Curnow is one of them.
He needs to get more mobile and use the space that the system has afforded him. He needs to compete better in the air and halve more 1v1 contests so he can bring Tom Papley, Malcolm Rosas, and Sydney’s other smalls into the game.
If he can’t take advantage of a system that’s built for him, Sydney has a Curnow problem now and into the future.