Less than an hour before Hawthorn's intra-club at La Trobe University last Wednesday night, Sam Mitchell flings six whiteboard markers around a squished change room. One by one, they land with six of his players, who have become accustomed to this game over the pre-season. Those players walk up to the whiteboard and start scribbling in a pyramid of boxes.

Josh Ward is first up, drawing with a red marker. Fergus Greene and Finn Maginness jostle for room, while Lachie Bramble is the last one to finish his artwork, sketching something almost indecipherable in blue. One by one, Mitchell asks them why each cartoon is reflective of their individual weapons.

Welcome to how the Hawks play Pictionary.

It may only be mid-February, but Hawthorn is treating this scratch match as if premiership points are up for grabs. They picked teams the day before, who trained separately and are now sitting in different change rooms, next door to each other. It means the 21 players who have squeezed into this room are one step closer to facing Essendon in round one. Last year’s first-round picks Cam Mackenzie and Josh Weddle are two notable omissions, as are former first-round selections Jack Scrimshaw and Denver Grainger-Barras. The season opener is still a month away, but this is a timely reminder of who sits where.

"There are plenty of guys next door who want to be in here, but they're not. It all starts here. This is what you go to work for," Mitchell says.

Before the pre-game meeting ends, Mitchell asks James Sicily – who is less than 48 hours away from being appointed captain – to explain to the group what is expected from the backline. Following on from Pictionary, the reigning Peter Crimmins medallist uses the word 'connected'. All three lines have a theme, and the defence wants to be organised behind the ball. With that concise explanation, the meeting ends 15 minutes after it started – as planned – and the door opens to bright light on a humid evening in Bundoora.

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TWO WEEKS before the intra-club, the entire list and football department finds itself in Gippsland for a four-day pre-season camp. Deep inside the bowels of Federation University in Churchill, behind a door that doesn't look like a door, Hawthorn's football department convenes on day two. The pre-season camp isn't just about setting expectations for those who wear the brown and gold on weekends in winter; it is also a place where those who help drive the program can improve.

While some of the players are off playing golf following weights, craft and a pool session to start the day, Rob McCartney is standing in front of a group of nearly 40 people. Hawthorn's general manager of football is used to being front and centre, speaking to large groups of people. In a past life, McCartney was principal of a primary school in Shepparton, the culmination of a long career in education. But today, the sagacious administrator is here to drive the standards of his department.

Football departments aren't just comprised of coaches and football operations. They include everything from medical to high performance; from welfare to analytics; from recruiting to players. This is a diverse mix of men and women, all who have a role to play in getting the most out of the youngest list in the AFL.

McCartney directs those present to split into groups of four, with no overlap within their direct teams. From there, the room unpacks the 'performance pyramid' that's projected on the wall. Fresh from speaking to the first-to-fourth-year boys, club psychologist, Andrew Waterson joins new backline coach, Kade Simpson, in conversation, while football operations coordinator, John Cavarra, is also involved after running around to make sure those who have just arrived have keys to their rooms. The point of sessions like these are to create a high-performance culture. The Hawks believe if they can get the little things right, they can fast-track a rebuild that became very real, very quickly last October.

"This doesn't happen by chance," McCartney says while reinforcing the five-year vision he helped drive in 2021. "As Sam says, if we take until 2030, Sam and I will be out of a job. You move fast with a plan." McCartney was Alastair Clarkson's right-hand man, but is now by Mitchell's side. He started in development at Hawthorn and has been head of projects, but with his calm demeanour the room is at ease in his presence.

Mitchell is now at the business end of his second pre-season in charge of the club with which he won four premierships, a Brownlow Medal and five Peter Crimmins Medals. Just like in his playing days, the 40-year-old is constantly searching for marginal gains.

In this session, McCartney is putting the coach under the microscope. Mitchell's performance plan is beamed up on the screen by football operations manager, Annelie Smith, who appears to always know what McCartney wants next. Key performance indicators are there for all to see. Relationships are central to the role. Relationships with players, coaches, the footy department, CEO Justin Reeves and the board. Playing to win and developing the next wave of premiership players at Hawthorn. Mitchell wants to continue to develop bonds with the wider football department, not just the coaches in his team. He is open and happy to be exposed in front of the group. Deeper connection is needed to ensure the club sticks the course in a rebuild that might be tough to stomach at times.

Personal development is also a significant part of the performance plan. Everyone in the room is implored to do this during the year. It is what led Mitchell to visit Scottish football giants Celtic during his time away from the club during the off-season, where he spent time observing and learning from former Socceroos manager Ange Postecoglou in Glasgow.

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THE NEXT morning, Hawthorn has just finished a two-and-a-half-hour session at Morwell East Football Club when new high performance boss Peter Burge is the bearer of bad news. Training isn't over, not just yet. The group needs to get back into their cars and make the 10-minute drive back to campus. It isn't music to their ears, but the music blasting out of the old-school change rooms turns up the tempo on the biggest day of the pre-season camp.

The players trek back to Federation University and re-group near where they are living this week. In the middle of the sleeping quarters is a narrow path that leads up the main part of the campus. It is steep and Burge has a pain session ready to execute. In pairs, the players sprint repeatedly up the hill for the best part of 20 minutes. Changkuoth Jiath and Finn Maginness lead the way from the start, with Josh Weddle nipping at their heels alongside Ned Long.

Burge has returned to Waverley Park after more than a decade away from the club. The fitness boss was in charge of strength and conditioning between 2005 and 2011, before spending a season with St Kilda in 2012 ahead of a wildly successful run at Richmond between 2013 and 2022.

Before turning his attention to coaching, Burge represented Australia in long jump and triple jump, winning a gold medal at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, before finishing sixth at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. He has been all over the country working in elite programs, but now he is back at Hawthorn, determined to play his role in the rebuild. That was a big part of the appeal of leaving a juggernaut.

The 48-year-old doesn't move like he once did but sprints up the hills, alongside Sam Mitchell, Kade Simpson, Chris Newman and David Hale. They know the session is the last thing the players want to do after training, so they do their bit to get it done. "Love your footy," Mitchell says to his troops with that trademark smirk as he shuffles his body up another hill.

Physically and mentally preparing 45 players for a season is a tough, underrated task. Individual programs need to be built and tinkered with constantly. Every niggle needs to be dissected to ensure it doesn't turn into a bigger problem. But once match simulation starts, issues arise, just like they did at La Trobe University at the end of January when Mitch Lewis strained his anterior cruciate ligament. The incident was so innocuous it was difficult to identify. In vision of the moment that is believed to have caused the injury that will sideline him for 12 weeks, Lewis sprints after an opponent afterwards, leaving the sports scientists scratching their heads.

Burge knows this is part of the game, but he grimaces while discussing the incident inside the gym at Federation University. Students filter in and out, but it is dominated by those in Hawthorn gear. Lewis is in there working away, frustrated it's happened but grateful it's not season over. 12 weeks is much better than 12 months. The Hawks’ medical and high performance teams have got Josh Ward up and running after a nagging issue with his hip and groin. But there is always another headache lurking around the corner.

Like almost everyone inside the football department, Burge has been blown away by Josh Weddle's physical prowess. The assiduous 18-year-old is built like a player entering his fourth year. And he runs like few others who have entered the game, boasting a combination of speed and endurance that saw him win all four 1km time trials earlier in the year. Burge smiles when asked about Weddle. But overall, the Hawks are thrilled with the conditioning gains they've made across a summer where they have been largely displaced from Waverley Park due to resurfacing. They have trained at three universities – La Trobe, Monash and Federation – plus Caulfield Grammar’s Wheelers Hill campus and don't have an excuse not to start 2023 in great shape.

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HAWTHORN has undergone widespread change in the past 18 months. The football department looks very different, from high performance to coaches to the playing list. All changes have been designed with a bigger picture in play. But when you consider the task ahead – a major on-field rebuild, a massive $100m build of new headquarters in Dingley, and repairing supporter faith amid the racism review – the new president is a crucial part of the next chapter.  

The Hawks had more than their fair share of champion players – and one of the greatest coaches in VFL/AFL history – during a golden era from 2008-15 that amassed four premierships, including the iconic three-peat. But one voice is no longer at the club, perhaps the loudest voice of all. Jeff Kennett has left the club after two stints as president. The first between 2005 and 2011, the second from 2017 until December last year.

Kennett is gone, and his preferred replacement, Peter Nankivell, is not his replacement. Andy Gowers is in the hot seat following a presidential battle that felt more like something out of House of Cards or The West Wing, rather than a battle for a spot leading an AFL club.

The 1991 Hawthorn premiership player is here to unify a club that has been divided in recent years. Gowers has been involved in the club for a long time. He played 89 games in the brown and gold – and 51 more in Brisbane – before returning as football director during the three-peat. It was never his intention to rise to the presidency, but he felt obligated to help put the club back on course.

Late on day three of Hawthorn's pre-season camp in Gippsland, Gowers walks to the front of a meeting room. He has driven up for the day with CEO Justin Reeves, arriving just in time to listen to local products Newcombe and Jiath front the media after the hill sprints and main training session. Two Gippsland boys who have already reached greater heights than many expected, with much more potential to realise.

Gowers has been around football clubs for most of his life and he has been on plenty of camps across his journey. While his addresses to the players will be more formal in future, this one is relaxed and brief, a reminder that while pre-season camps have become more professional than when he finished the final five seasons of his career with the Bears and Lions, they are still all about connection.

The 53-year-old shares a story of a pre-season camp in Noosa ahead of the 1995 season with the Bears that leaves the group in stitches. Hawthorn's group is so young most weren't even born when Gowers played his final game in brown and gold in 1994, but there is an immediate connection between the players and Gowers. His son, Billy, played for Carlton and the Western Bulldogs, and faced many in the room in the VFL last season. With the tone shifted late in the camp, Gowers fades into the background. He isn't here for the limelight, but will get his hands dirty. He wants this group to stick together and build the next premiership side.

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IF YOU’VE seen Hawthorn on the news in recent weeks, you might think there are some divisions within the playing ranks. First Sam Butler and James Sicily clashed in Morwell, before Sam Frost and Denver Grainger-Barras got involved. Butler had pinned Sicily holding the ball and the star defender didn't like copping it from a lippy second-year small forward who let him know all about it. Unfortunately for Butler, his resulting set shot didn't make the distance from 40m out, ensuring he was on the receiving end of some pointed feedback.

Watching on from the balcony, Sam Mitchell and Rob McCartney had no issue with the altercation. Neither did any of the assistants who were more concerned about the next setup. Competition for spots is fierce at this time of the summer, and Butler is one playing on the edge right now. Grainger-Barras was central in another scuffle in the intra-club that led news bulletins around Melbourne. Connor Macdonald, Jack Scrimshaw, Conor Nash and Changkuoth Jiath were all involved, but again, the Hawks had no issue with some heated emotions heading into round one. You don't have to be a qualified psychologist to know that Grainger-Barras is frustrated with where he is at right now.

Sitting in the makeshift coaches' box on the balcony, Chris Newman, the former Richmond captain and now Hawthorn forwards coach, takes one look at Kade Simpson, the Carlton great and new backline coach, and smiles. Even data analytics manager, Pat Cortazzo, has a cheeky grin on his face while he looks at the monitor in front of him, rapidly working on the last-minute assignment Mitchell has requested before heading into the rooms. Footy is back. Competition for spots is fierce, even at a club where wins are expected to be hard to come by in 2023.

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JAI NEWCOMBE isn't one to sit and contemplate how far he has come in such a short space of time, but there are reminders across the pre-season. During a clinic on the camp, the 21-year-old couldn't help but feel guilty when he saw a kid with No. 44 on his back. And that kid wasn't the only one; there were a handful of them in Morwell, something not lost on the man at the club who has more titles than anyone else, Keegan Brooksby, Box Hill’s talent and football operations manager, who has to be the only state league footballer in the country who plays for a club not based in the state he resides in. The former Gold Coast, West Coast and Hawthorn ruckman is suiting up for South Adelaide again in 2023.

Back in Melbourne at the intra-club, there are even more Newcombe 44s located in Bundoora. Who didn't get swept up in Newcombe mania in 2022? Not many rise like he has so quickly, from a mid-season recruit in 2021 to third in the Rising Star 18 months later. But after also finishing runner-up in the best and fairest, the demure Poowong product has moved to the iconic No.3 guernsey, following an endorsement from club legend Leigh Matthews.

Newcombe is one of the shrewdest list management decisions Hawthorn has made in recent years, making a staggering leap from the VFL to the AFL. Now list boss Mark McKenzie is standing on the balcony at La Trobe University contemplating another Box Hill player just hours before the Pre-season Supplemental Selection Period deadline.

Former Collingwood midfielder Callum Brown has been invited to trial for the final spot after signing with the VFL program earlier in the summer. The club has been open with the 24-year-old and his manager, Mark Kleiman, across the pre-season. They trialled Tasmanian small forward Brandon Leary in January but opted to take a close look at Brown during the last week of the window.

Sam Mitchell isn't making things easy for Brown at the intra-club. He starts the ex-Pie on champion small forward Luke Breust, who hits the scoreboard early, and it is a tough day from there. Mitchell meets with McKenzie and the recruiting team 45 minutes after the game finishes. Everyone has gone home by now, but the Hawks need to make a call after the AFL extended the deadline to allow them to play the game before deciding.

McKenzie has been in the role since he replaced Graham Wright in 2021, following a distinguished career in the SANFL where he won five best and fairests and became an all-time great at Woodville-West Torrens, amid stints on the rookie list at Port Adelaide and Carlton. He has overseen a major list overhaul at Hawthorn in a short amount of time. The club has selected Josh Ward, Sam Butler, Connor Macdonald, Cam Mackenzie and Josh Weddle in the past two drafts. That group's success is crucial to this rebuild.

Brown won't be on the list in 2023, at least for the first half of the season. Hawthorn has decided to keep the spot open for the Mid-Season Rookie Draft. Hard decisions are part of the caper, and that's the decision McKenzie and the team make before leaving La Trobe University.

McKenzie, Mitchell, McCartney, Reeves and Gowers will need to make many more hard decisions across the season ahead. Hard decisions are needed to return Hawthorn to premiership contention as soon as possible.