Four quarter effort the focus for Lions, HickmottSaturday, September 9, 2023 - 3:34 PM - by Chris Pike

SUBIACO on-baller Liam Hickmott might like to let his football do the talking and it's doing plenty of that with the premiership winning midfielder making the WAFL Team of the Year for a second straight season as he prepares for Sunday's first semi-final.

Hickmott, along with younger brother Wil, spent his teenage years growing up in Perth with their father, Adrian, moving West Coast to continue his coaching life at the West Coast Eagles after his 184-game AFL playing career at Geelong and Carlton.

Then even when Adrian headed to Hawthorn at the end of 2021, his sons remained in Western Australia to continue their WAFL careers at Subiaco on the back of playing in the premiership of that season.

For Liam, he had a standout 2022 season spending the majority of time as a permanent on-baller even though Subiaco ended up missing finals. He's continued on and improved even further in 2023 to earn back-to-back selections in the WAFL Team of the Year.

But what his focus is on is trying to get a chance to earn another premiership medal with Subiaco with the Lions now needing to keep winning for that to be possible starting with Sunday's first semi-final against Claremont at Leederville Oval.

Taking on Claremont with season on the line

Subiaco finished the home and away season in second position on the WAFL ladder and found themselves 29 points in front of Peel Thunder early in the third quarter of last Saturday's qualifying final.

The Lions were then in front again up to the 24-minute mark of the last quarter but ultimately lost by 10 points to now be using their double chance this Sunday with the first semi-final at home once more against Claremont.

Hickmott is looking forward to the challenge and is thankful to have the home ground advantage against the Tigers.

"It will definitely be a good game and us mids from Subi definitely know that we need to win that first contest, and that's where the ball starts to get it going to our forwards where they can do their magic and kick a goal for us," Hickmott said on 91.3 SportFM.

"I think it does help a bit to get to play on your home ground. The ovals are pretty different between Claremont and Leederville, they are two very different ovals so it will help that we train there all year and we've played some really good footy at Leederville. I am glad that it's at home."

Starting finals with a tough loss

After a surprisingly down year in 2022 to not make the finals for the first time since 2013 aside from the COVID shortened season of 2020, Subiaco is back in the finals in 2023 but it wasn’t quite the ideal start against Peel last Saturday.

The 10-point loss means that Subiaco is now in a knockout situation the rest of the way, but the Lions did do a lot right against the Thunder. That's why Hickmott is confident they can still give the premiership a shake starting with getting by Claremont on Sunday.

"That's footy for you, sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down, it all comes back to playing four quarters. That's what ended up letting us down last weekend so hopefully this weekend we can go back to that four quarter effort and that's what can get us over the line," Hickmott said.

"It more came down to that four quarter effort. When we played our style of play and did what we wanted to do, we were really strong and that's what got us the lead going into half-time. But it's just that third quarter that let us down quite a lot so we know we have to fix up that and give a fourth quarter effort."

Tough finish to games last two weeks

While Subiaco has lost its last two games against minor premiers East Fremantle back in Round 20 and then in the qualifying final against Peel, they have been in winning positions in both games.

It was only a huge fourth quarter from East Fremantle that cost the Lions two weeks ago and the third quarter last week against Peel so Hickmott knows that just finding a four quarter effort needs to be the focus from the Lions.

"To be honest we were more of a slower starting team at the beginning of the season and our last quarters were our strong seasons," he said. 

"But now we've kind of swapped it up a bit. But we just need to get back to doing what we do best and that's four quarter efforts, running out the game and playing to our strengths. We just need to know what to speed it up and slow it down to be honest."

Being a two-way midfielder

Hickmott has gone up another level again in 2023 consolidating himself as one of the best midfielders in the competition where his in-and-under work remains a strength. He's also becoming greatly improved on the outside and is becoming more damaging with his possessions. 

He has averaged 25.6 touches a game including six matches with 30 disposals or more while only having under 20 three times, and becoming a two-way midfielder who gets forward and back is a focus of his.

"You want to have two-way midfielders so firstly we want to be able to get back to help our defence but then also get forward when we can," Hickmott said.

"Unfortunately I'm not the goalkicking midfielder like Schoey or Stef, but it's one thing that we want to do as midfielders is to run both ways. And then kicking goals is always good fun to get a bit of reward for the hard work."

Body holding up late in the season

Hickmott is also feeling good despite having played the full season as an in-and-under midfielder so is looking forward to getting back out there on Sunday trying to help Subiaco win into next week's preliminary final.

"The body's actually not feeling too bad," he said. 

"It was kind of nice last weekend with the rain and it made Leederville Oval a lot softer than it has been, so it was kind of better to pull up from than when we played a couple of weeks ago. So the body's feeling good and I'm ready for the weekend."

Playing at the feet of Zac Clarke

Hickmott has also enjoyed the chance of playing with the starting ruckman from the WAFL Team of the Year, Zac Clarke, this season and is looking forward to benefiting from his good work again in Sunday's first semi-final.

"Zac has been real good for us this year and he's helped us mids out completely. He'll be up and about for the game again on Sunday," Hickmott said.

"We've just built that connection by doing a lot of work on it at training, and we've just always clicked in terms of the taps. 

"He's a really good ruckman so he makes my job really easy and I think any of the other mids would say the exact same thing. What he does make our job easier and he just makes us look good to be honest."