Hawthorn Senior Coach Sam Mitchell has addressed the media ahead of his side’s Elimination Final against the Western Bulldogs on Friday night.
Mitchell touched on the excitement around the team as the Hawks prepare to play in finals for the first time since 2018.
We summarised the key points from Mitchell’s press conference below.
On the players’ excitement levels
“We had a chat about who’s feeling something yet and a lot of it’s peripheral, staff and people, there’s a level of excitement around September. It’s not necessarily the players who feel it first, I think that gets closer to game day, but whether it’s partners or parents or fans, I think there’s a level of expectation and excitement in the air.”
On playing in front of a sellout crowd
“I suspect there will be 90,000 or thereabouts at the game and the fact that we’ve done that before, it’s one less unknown. It will be a different crowd to the Dusty 300th but we’ve played in front of some big crowds. Are we as experienced as some of the other clubs? Obviously not and there are a lot of premiership players in the Bulldogs side. But do we go into the game confident that we’ve played in front of 90,000+? Yes. So we have some level of confidence but we’re all trying to tell the story of what might happen and it would be a lot easier to tell the story after the result.”
On drawing on the experience of premiership players in the side
“Across the playing group, we asked who’s been here before, who’s experienced it, who’s got some tips, who knows how they’ve handled something well or handled something poorly in years gone by. I think in a football club with so many experiences from so many people, we do our best to share those things but we also have to bring it back to the fact that it’s still a game of footy at the MCG. There will be a lot of peripheral things happening but when the ball bounces, it’s still just a game.”
On Will Day’s injury status
“I think we’ll try and make a decision reasonably quickly (about whether he returns next week). I don’t think we need the cloak and dagger stuff which we’ve avoided for this game, we knew he wouldn’t be available so we let you guys know pretty quickly and just for him, as much as anyone, so he doesn’t get asked about it all the time. He certainly hasn’t been ruled out for anything after this week.”
Watch Mitchell’s full press conference below.
