Hear what Hawthorn Coach Sam Mitchell had to say following his side’s 29-point loss to St Kilda on Sunday.

On the Saints’ nine-goal opening quarter:

“In the first quarter we just couldn’t get any territory at all, we actually scored okay when we got it forward, but we couldn’t get it there often enough.

“Their pressure was too consistently at a higher level for us to be able to get through often enough to really challenge them.

“We had some good moments, we were able to do some good things, but defensively I think they were stable and strong in that area of the ground.”

On getting the margin back to 11 points at the final break:

“I thought we had real energy, there was real optimism going into third quarter time, there was some excitement about what would happen at the start of the last quarter if we kicked the first goal.

“But their first quarter and first 15 minutes of the last quarter, we just weren’t able to handle what they were capable of.

“We played them here at Marvel earlier this season, we got the win after we ran down them late. We thought 'this is okay, we’ve got this in our kit bag', but it just wasn’t meant to be.

“Earlier in the year, if we were six goals down at quarter time, it was probably going to be an ugly game. So to get back within two goals and to be right there, there's a positive to make in it.” 

On James Sicily’s performance:

“I think Sicily is just such a dominant player across the competition. He is just a fantastic defender, but offensively he’s such a threat as well.

“We were pretty sure they were going to put some work into him coming into today – he played really well against them last time – but I thought he worked his way through it quite well.

“He was able to still have an influence across the day, but not as dominate as he has been, but I still think he made a contribution.”

On Luke Breust’s six-goal haul and Brandon Ryan’s debut: 

“It was a pretty good day for Luke Breust… he’s getting a bit ‘long in the tooth’ and he actually can’t talk still (due to his throat issue), but he’s been doing a good job.

“Brandon Ryan in his first game, we saw some things and that was what we hoped for. We saw enough to say there’s something there with him and that was really pleasing.”

On building standards within his young group:

“We were capable of playing so much better in the early part of the game… we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard than that if we want to get to where we want to go.

“We need to be consistently holding ourselves to a standard that is a bit higher than it is, and that’s part of our journey. What is acceptable? The level we are capable of is growing consistently week after week, we get more and more disappointed the further on the journey we go when we don’t win. I was disappointed for us today."

Hear more from Mitchell post-game below.