Midfielder Will Day says the Hawks are eager to continue their strong form as they near the business end of the 2024 season.
Day managed 26 disposals, seven score involvements and five clearances in the Hawks 66-point win over Collingwood on Saturday.
Speaking on SEN Breakfast, Day said that while the young Hawks are having fun with their winning ways, they're determined to keep putting in the work to match the high stakes.
Take a look at a few key points from Day's interview below.
On the group’s unwavering belief
“We definitely thought we were (capable). When you lose five in a row it makes it a little bit harder to see it. But I think around the club we sort of stuck to our process and kept moving forward so it’s nice to be on the flip end of a few of the results now, but I don’t think we lost that belief throughout the year.”
On Sam Mitchell's connection with players and enjoying the win
“Since I’ve been at the club, he started as VFL head coach when he came back and he was really big on building relationships. I heard when he was a player, he was really hard on everyone and really drove everyone to be better. I think when he came into coaching, he knew that relationships were a really important thing to start off with and he put an enormous amount of work into that. Us young boys at the time, he spent countless hours with us, not even about footy, just sitting and having chats. I think that’s gone a long way in now when we are having a lot of fun, he can also pull us in and we have the relationships with him now that he can be stern with us and we know it’s for the right reasons.
“I think some weeks he finds it hard to express that joy, cause as the coach he feels he doesn’t want to get too ahead of himself. But we bring the joy out of him and on the weekend, he said that last 10 minutes was just about the most fun he’s had in any football game so to hear that from him, and us players are having fun. But the fact that him and not only him but the broader coaching group and the staff, we just want to have a really fun environment, which is awesome”
On the build up to the contest against Collinwgood
“I feel like we were really prepared for the game and obviously there’s little things like that which play a little part. I feel like going in we have a really good team, David Mackay’s been awesome with oppo analysis and it feels like each week we’re going in really confident and we know what they want to bring and when the opposition are playing their best, how we can stop them. I think that’s gone a long way in the run that we’ve had and there’s not too many times in games in the past few weeks where we’ve been surprised by anything which has been really important for us.”
On facing the Crows in Adelaide this weekend
“We know on the weekend they played some awesome footy, and when they are at their best they’re a very good side, obviously going over to Adelaide makes it a little more difficult as well. We know that we’re going to have to be at our best and that’s every game for the rest of the season really. We know that if we want a chance a making finals we’re really just going to have to keep winning games, so it’s pretty cool as each game comes the stakes get higher and higher which is really exciting for us.”