Hawthorn Senior Coach Sam Mitchell spoke about the challenge of facing Fremantle this weekend when fronting the media on Thursday morning.
Mitchell also touched on Mitch Lewis' attitude following his devastating ACL injury and provided an update on some other players who may be in line to make their return this weekend.
See the key points from his press conference below.
On the availability of Jack Ginnivan, James Sicily and Calsher Dear
“A few boys will have a test today. Ginni’s more unlikely than likely, but not ruled out. Sis and Calsher are more likely than unlikely but not ticked off yet. That’s about as far as I can tell you so far.”
On Mitch Lewis’s attitude post-injury
“Amazingly, he’s been in at the club and we don’t need him here, like he doesn’t need to be doing anything. He’s got a brace on his knee but he’s still at the club, he’s still getting around and doing the things that he can do. He’s still going to the line meetings and having an impact and having his input into how we need to play and what we need to do to beat Freo. I think it’s important for him that everyone sees that. He’s still a great person to have around the club. Everyone’s pretty proud of how he’s handling it so far. There will be some down times and he’ll have the surgery over the next couple of weeks so there’s some challenges ahead but at the moment, onward and upward. We know that he’s got a long road ahead of him but he knows that he has the full support of the football club. We have other players in similar positions. At the moment it’s just about the stability of his knee and meeting the surgeons so he’s got the full support from us.”
On the loss against Geelong
“It shouldn’t be the case but you learn more from your losses than your wins. It shouldn’t be like that. You should be able to learn the same but we certainly review every game closely. With this one, we looked at some areas that we went away from and things that we normally pride ourselves on and quite often as I’ve mentioned, it’s one step off here or there and it makes all the difference. Geelong are a really quality side and it doesn’t get too much easier. We play Freo, they’re third on the ladder, they’ve been in fantastic form, they’ve won their last three. They’re a side that has struggled in the past and we know we’ve got a challenge in front of us. The good thing about our game is that you get to play straight away a week later and see if you can make improvements in everything that you’re doing and we’ve been doing that now for a couple of years, trying to make an improvement every week to be the team closer to what we want to be.”
On facing Fremantle on Saturday
“We know that their midfield has been unbelievably consistent and with (Hayden) Young going in there over the last 12 months, it adds another dimension to the other guys so I think their midfield is really strong now. Our boys are going to have to be at their best, they know that, but our midfield has been in good form as well. We had a really poor game last week but I’ve got good confidence that they’ll play closer to their best.”
Watch Mitchell’s full press conference below.
