They’re the most ignored team in the top eight, and they’ve got the toughest run home of anyone in the race for September.
But Sam Mitchell has Hawthorn ready to swim, rather than sink, in the chase for glory in 2025.
The Hawks are a weird case study. They’re the biggest victims of overreactions in the media, in either direction.
Recently, discussions around them have often featured the phrase “yeah, but.” Many remain unconvinced.
The hype train was running nicely early, then it fell off, then they were battling through injuries. The defence, more specifically the mix of Josh Battle, Tom Barrass and James Sicily, has been questioned. The midfield, lacking any top-end talent, has likewise come in for criticism, although the returning of the team’s most important piece in Will Day has mitigated that just a little.
The forward mix has been a focus too: they’ve gone from Jack Gunston and Mabior Chol, to adding Mitch Lewis and Calsher Dear, and now trialling all four against Adelaide on Friday night before making a big decision on the set-up moving forward.
In all this time, Mitchell has remained level-headed, despite having the ability to bite back in a significant way via media barbs. While missing key pieces, he has sought to adjust tactics and style.
Over their last five games, the Hawks have participated in matches all across Australia’s weather spectrum, which has forced them to adjust. Preferentially, they want to control the ball in an uncontested way and use angles. It’s a team that likes to slow it down and then take on the risky kick. It’s why they’re one of the leading teams in the league for marks inside 50 per entry.
Until recently, this hadn’t been a team filled with dynamic offensive talent, but rather a group of intelligent players who know how to find space and are willing to hunt the opposition.
Typically, they’ve been one of the best pressure teams in the competition because of the buy-in from their forwards, while the midfielders help choke the opposition into turning the ball over. They’re the best team at defending one-on-ones, but where they really thrive is in pressure, causing the first domino that inevitably leads to mountainous numbers of intercept possessions. That’s where the aforementioned key defensive trio thrive, while Blake Hardwick does the dirty work at ground level.
With a forward mix built on intelligence more than variety, it’s about finding pockets of space. With a genuine leading forward (Lewis) and an extremely talented aerial presence with some ground level touch on offer (Dear), the Hawks can afford to practice being more reckless.
In their last five matches, they’ve gone from, over the past 18 months, being a below average clearance team, to an above average one. Their contested possession rate is top-five in the league, despite that being a struggle for a long period of time, too.
For lack of a better term, they’ve been more helter-skelter with their entries inside 50. What had been a team that generated score nicely out of the back half of the centre square has become one where the pressure has gone up another level, creating more stoppages in the forward half and generating scores that way.
Where Jack Gunston has been the premier avenue to goals, he now becomes the third tall, or fourth on Friday night, and finds more space on his lonesome out the back.
Ushering in Lewis and Dear is extremely transformative for multiple reasons. It’s hard to use the Carlton game as a premier case study given how one-sided it was, but we’re talking about two players with complementary skillsets who don’t get in each other’s ways too much.
They can rotate who attacks the ball higher up the ground to leave Gunston closer to goal, while at full force, Lewis’ leading patterns are nearly unstoppable. Crucially, similarly to Chol, we’re talking about a group that isn’t afraid to chase – neither Dear nor Lewis are defensive liabilities.
This, ultimately, is where the Hawks can separate themselves from anyone they face as they head into the hardest month of footy of any of the contenders.
The Hawks have been a team filled with solid contributors from top-to-bottom and this was only proven to be more true while their crown jewel in Day missed most of the season.
Josh Ward has taken a big step forward, as has the marvellous Gunston, but other than that, perhaps only Jack Ginnivan can lay claim to genuine improvement – but he’s just a good player anyway.
Day looks dynamic and, quite frankly, like a winning piece. Dear and Lewis have looked better and better with every passing week, and the pressure eased on the other forwards has helped them.
Defensively, they’ve been great, and while Sicily has only recently truly recaptured something close to his best form, the two big-name recruits have been wonderful all season; any poor performance has been an aberration.
There are four games left. Hawthorn must win three to be completely safe – two will be risky but hopefully enough.
First, they face Adelaide away. The Crows have been a wonderful riser this season, with their bits-and-pieces style defence flourishing through structural integrity. They force a highly-contested game, which drains the opposition. Their opponents average the fewest and amongst the lowest pressure acts inside 50 of any legitimate team, as well as not allowing many marks inside 50.
Ultimately, the Crows are good at stopping everything the Hawks are good at, however, Hawthorn have been tinkering with their style. They’ll back themselves defensively against the three-headed beast in attack.
Where Hawthorn can beat the Crows is mixing the inside-outside styles they’ve developed over the past couple of seasons – you don’t want to overpossess the ball against them, because they’ll just force you wide and any corridor kick often results in a turnover.
The Hawks won’t want to fall victim to controlling uncontested ball in their defensive 50 – it’s far more important to try and do so higher up the ground and just bash the ball forward against this defence.
Sam Mitchell. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Josh Worrell is a likely All-Australian this year, but the others can be exploited athletically and in strength. It’ll be important for every member of Hawthorn’s offence to not stop moving – easier said than done against a team that forces stagnation.
Let the talls leap and the small lead up. Scramble the ball inside 50 rather than trying to find space where there is none, and the tackles will challenge Adelaide.
Trying to stretch the Crows by playing all four forwards while resting ruckman Lloyd Meek a little more during the game is a bold strategy, but one that ought to be explored. They’re running a supersized offence with ground-level threats firing.
The Melbourne game should be chalked down as an easy win in a fortnight, but facing Collingwood and Brisbane will be huge challenges in their final fortnight. For the Lions, it’s a little more straightforward – they’re so heavily reliant on their midfield and rebounding defenders to generate scores and defend that being able to sit on them as the Suns did previously, can be successful.
Force bombs inside 50 and watch the intercept marking numbers skyrocket in the final round.
The Collingwood game will be the most difficult, due to their switchable styles in a similar manner to the Hawks themselves. Regardless, it’s clearly the most important month in Mitchell’s coaching tenure, yet everything really does seem oddly calm.
Recently, there has just been a professional vibe coming out of the Hawks. They seem to be a team in full control of their destiny, one comfortable in measuring up to any challenge.
They were always aiming to be within reaching distance by August, when they knew their star players and important structural pieces would return. No Josh Weddle hurts, but it has opened the door for Sicily to recapture something.
You simply have to be in it to win it and that’s the mantra the Hawks will be adopting in the final month.
They’ve not guaranteed their spot in September yet, but something’s brewing here – enough to indicate that this is a team we’ll see at the very least in the third week of that month.
