Hawthorn great Sam Mitchell has shared the story on The Golden Years podcast on the tackle that potentially saved Alastair Clarkson's coaching career.
Ahead of Hawthorn's Round 8 clash against Richmond in 2010, the Hawks had lost six games in a row, including 10 of their last 12, having missed the finals in 2009 after winning the premiership in 2008.
Mitchell produced a match-saving tackle on Richmond's Shane Tuck with the Hawks up by three points with under a minute left, denying Tuck a shot on goal and potentially saving Clarkson's career.
“The way I’ve heard it since was that going into the Richmond game there was a semi-ultimatum that we better win this, or you won’t have a job next week,” Mitchell told The Golden Years podcast.
“We won and that tackle was the moment that people look back to and if we had have lost that game, Clarko potentially could have lost his job and certainly our stories would be all very, very different.
“It’s a significant moment in Clarko’s career, I would have kept playing.
"When I think about my career there’s not too many individual moments that stick out, but that’s certainly one.”
And as they say, the rest is history.
