After Hawthorn confirmed its 2024 finals berth with a 124-point win over North Melbourne, Hawks Coach Sam Mitchell reflected on the journey ahead while speaking to the media post-game.
Mitchell also touched on the work it has taken to get into the Top 8 while thanking the brown and gold faithful for their dedicated support along the way.
We summarised the key points from Mitchell’s press conference below.
On the result against North Melbourne
“We had a pretty tough run of games before that as far as the ladder goes and with some travels. To come up against a side today who, on paper, should beat, it can be a different challenge for a young group. I thought the players were really good at being diligent. It was an arm wrestle early and we knew we had to just slowly get ahead and get it on our own terms. Credit to the players, they handled the challenge well.”
On officially being finals-bound
“It’s a pretty exciting time. I think the fans have come on the journey with us and supported us through this. My understanding is, and I haven’t done all the machinations of it, but I think we’ll be playing an MCG final so to all the 80+ thousand Hawthorn members, we’re going to get an MCG home-ground final, really. I think there’s going to be a pretty exciting couple of weeks ahead.”
On the journey to making finals
“I think it’s been so many people being so consistent for so long to get to this point. We see the players’ joy and the way they play together and support each other. I thought the selflessness today, there were handballs to other players in the goal square, there was squaring up to players for better shots on goal, those things are the manifestation of the way they go about it and that’s just the players. If you think about the support staff, the coaches and the people around that have created the environment for them to thrive, I think even you look at fans, we were 0-5 but whenever we had a home game, I always felt like the fans were there and they were on the journey with us and they were supportive and they knew what we were doing. I always felt like we had the backing of a pretty big membership base. I think when all of that started to turn, I think the belief started to grow really quickly, much quicker than it would’ve otherwise, and I think the players have really thrived off that and now you’re seeing it on the field. We get a couple of days now to reflect and look backwards, which is pretty rare during the season. I’ve never been a fan of the bye before the finals but I understand it now because having a couple of days to look backwards and appreciate the journey we’ve had so far will actually be quite good. Then being able to look forward to the next challenge, and the challenge only gets bigger, we’ll work out tomorrow afternoon where we play and where we start to play for that. For 24 hours, we get to reflect and look backwards and be pretty proud of what we achieved as a club to get to this point and get to this stage.”
On carrying the team’s momentum into the finals
“I don’t think there was a bye when I was playing and I haven’t been here before as a coach so it’s a bit of an unknown and that’s exciting in itself. I’m excited for what the next three or four days look like and try to work out what the plan is and then go about trying to execute that plan and being well-prepared for whoever we play. It’ll be a short time of reflection and then really diligent planning to make sure we’re as well prepared as we possibly can be to give September everything we have.”
Watch Mitchell’s full post-match press conference below.
