Hawthorn star forward Mitch Lewis has set himself an ambitious goal for season 2023.

Speaking to SEN’s The Run Home, Lewis said playing every game next year was his ultimate target – something he has yet to achieve in a season throughout his six-year career.

“We’ve been completing our own programs away from the football club for the last couple of months or so," he said. 

“For me, my focus is pretty much just to get my body right. Obviously last year I was good when I was playing and on the park, but I missed far too many games.

“I’ve made it a goal of mine to play every home and away game next year, that’s just about strengthening the body this pre-season and going into next year."

Lewis was no doubt one of the biggest improvers of 2022, enjoying a breakout season that saw him boot 37 goals from 15 games.

The 24-year-old ranked sixth in the league for goals per game and on nine occasions booted three or more majors.

“There comes a time in everybody’s career where the penny hopefully drops, and for me that was last year,” Lewis added.

“I know I can play at the level now, it’s not just about making up the 22, I want to be a strong contributor each week which is probably something I didn’t have for the first few years of my career.

“It’s very nice to run out on to the footy field and know you can really contribute to the team.”

And while Lewis enjoyed a career-best season in 2022, a knee injury mid-way through the year limited his ability to hit top speed.

While the injury wasn’t overly serious, he didn’t play again until Round 15 and required constant monitoring throughout the season.

“I hurt my knee against Collingwood just before the mid-season bye and that was a bit of a PCL injury,” Lewis said.

“It didn’t require any surgery or anything like that, but just inhibited my ability to get up to top speed.

“For the rest of the year I pretty much could really only run at 85 per cent which was quite hindering, I think I hurt it again in the St Kilda game which was my last game for the year.”

With the 2023 pre-season now right around the corner, Lewis is focussed on putting himself in the best possible position come Round 1. 

He said a combination of factors contributed to his significant rise in form throughout his 2022 campaign, something he hopes to replicate again in 2023.

“It’s hard to put a finger on it – I completed a pretty solid pre-season leading into last year, and was able to strengthen the body up a little bit,” Lewis said.

“Mitch (Sam Mitchell) was huge in coming in as the head coach and instilling a lot of belief in me. 

“It has changed a lot over the last six to seven years, when I first got into the footy club there was guys like Jarryd Roughead, Ryan Schoenmakers and Jack Gunston in the forward line as well.

“You look around now and think, ‘far out someone has got to take this forward line’ and Mitch just said to me ‘it should be you mate’.

“Having him just instil a lot of belief in me was massive.”