This Saturday, Hawthorn has the chance to win ten consecutive matches for just the seventh time in club history.

The club’s record winning sequence of 12 is shared by the 1961 and 2013 Hawks, while there have been three sequences of 11 (1971, 1976 and 2013-14) and one of 10 (1983-84).

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For the second week in a row Hawthorn will be aiming for a 14^th consecutive win against its opponent, hoping to achieve it versus Melbourne having done so against Carlton last Saturday. The Hawks last lost to Melbourne in the 2006 season and started its current run of 13 consecutive wins in Round 2 of 2007, most recently extending it earlier this season in Round 11.

Melbourne was also the opponent against which Hawthorn has recorded its longest ever winning sequence of 22 from 1973 to 1984.

In 2008, the second win of Hawthorn’s current winning sequence of 12 against Melbourne squared the ledger at 74-74 in the head-to-head battle between the two clubs, the first time it had been level it was 0-0 in 1925. The subsequent 11 wins have put Hawthorn in front – 85 to 74, after 159 games.

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Jordan Lewis will be playing his 259^th game on Saturday which will take him past John Platten and into outright 12^th on the Hawthorn all-time games list. Meanwhile Shaun Burgoyne will play his 157^th game for Hawthorn, equaling the 157 games he played for Port Adelaide from 2002 to 2009.

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Last week’s debutant Blake Hardwick shares his 5 February birthday with a couple of former Hawks – dual 1970s Premiership player Peter Murnane and recent one-gamer Derick Wanganeen.

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This week Hawthorn will play its 50^th Round 20 game. Of the 49 Round 20 games to date, Hawthorn has won 29 and lost 20. In the Clarkson era, the Hawks have won eight and lost three, including victories in the last six games. Two of those six were also against Melbourne in 2010 and 2014.

The first Round 20 was played in 1945 to provide extra games to compensate for those lost during the war. It has been a permanent part of the fixture since 1968. In 1945, 1968 and 1969 it was the final round of the home and away season. In 1945, the Hawks played eventual Grand Finalists, South Melbourne, at their temporary war-time home ground of the Junction Oval, losing by 36 points. Hawthorn recorded wins in both 1968 and 1969, against Fitzroy and St Kilda respectively, with Peter Hudson booting eight goals in each game, to finish with 125 and 120 for the seasons.

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Ten years ago, in Round 20 2006, Hawthorn produced a stunning first half score of 16.7 (103) to open up a 61-point half-time lead against Essendon. This is one of just ten occasions in Hawthorn history when the team has reached 100 by half-time, and one of only two in the Clarkson era, the other being against Port Adelaide in 2011.

The young 2006 Hawks team were unable to sustain that scoring pace in the second half and ended up with just an 18 point margin at the finish - 19.10 (124) to 15.16 (106).

Still Hawthorn had beaten Essendon twice in the one season for the first time since 1991 and there was much cause for optimism as the stars of the future were very much to the fore, with both Sam Mitchell and Luke Hodge accumulating 34 disposals and Jarryd Roughead kicking four goals.

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Twenty-five years ago, in Round 20 1991, Michael Tuck got the final Brownlow votes of his career, picking up the three votes for what the umpires adjudged to be a best-on-ground performance against Footscray at Waverley Park. He had also picked up the three votes a month earlier versus Adelaide. The game against the Bulldogs saw the Hawks came from five points down at half-time to grind out a 14 point win – 12.11 (83) to 10.9 (69).

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Thirty years ago, in Round 20 1986, the Hawks doubled Collingwood’s score, winning 20.24 (144) to 10.12 (72). The star was Robert Dipierdomenico who earned the three Brownlow votes in his Medal-winning year for a game in which he gathered 28 disposals and booted a career-high five goals.

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Forty years ago, in Round 20 1976, Hawthorn secured one its rare 1970s victories at the Junction Oval, sneaking home by just three points against an inaccurate Fitzroy – 14.10 (94) to 12.19 (91). Michael Moncrieff kicked five goals, while the best players’ list was headed by the defenders Ian Bremner and David O’Halloran.

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The leading individual goalkicker for Hawthorn against Melbourne is Peter Hudson, who booted 16 goals at Glenferrie in Round 5 1969. The Round 20 record is held by Jason Dunstall, who kicked 12 against Essendon in 1992.

Other 10 goal-plus Round 20 hauls for Hawthorn were Dunstall’s 11 versus Collingwood in 1990 and Michael Moncrieff’s 10 against Essendon in 1972.