Hawthorn ruck Lloyd Meek is eyeing personal and team improvement in season 2025. 

The 26-year-old found a new level of aggression in his game last year and wants to take that to another level this season. 

Speaking to the media on Tuesday morning, Meek also spoke about the expectations the Hawks are placing on themselves in 2025. 

We summarised the key points from his press conference below. 

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On his personal expectations

“I feel like you put more expectation and pressure on yourself when you're not in the team and you're hunting and fighting every single week to try and get your name tag on the board. I feel like I've always put expectations on myself, but that's the industry, that's the game. I'm excited about what we can do. I know that one week fell after the other last year and it really helped me snowball some confidence and some momentum. The team was going well and the way we were all just buying into our culture and trademark and everything that we wanted to stand for so I think it was all exciting. I feel like the expectations are there but you’ve got to love it, pressure’s a privilege, as they say.”

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On the aggressive side of his game

“It's actually funny, like in hindsight, one of my biggest knocks when I wasn't drafted after my 18-year-old years was that I wasn't aggressive enough and wasn't physical enough, that was the feedback I got from recruiters all the time. Now people refer to it as a strength, so it is something I've worked on, but I feel like I've really found ways to create its own meaning in my head. It's all about timing and commitment to the contest and obviously the craft is a big part of it as well. I'm not really going out there trying to bowl blokes over, but if that's what happens and I can just put my full attention and focus on the ball and go for it, then hopefully that gives my mids around me a bit of confidence that I'm going to play the role.”

On Will Day’s pre-season form 

“He’s obviously such an impressive player and a superstar teammate. I think one thing that really stands out behind the scenes is how his leadership has just gone to another level as well. He's obviously been leading from the front now for a couple of years, but I think he's one person that on game day, everyone's going to look up to and you just know that he can set the tone for whatever the team's focusing on. In our midfield as well, his knowledge of the game and obviously his skill level is what everyone sees and that's phenomenal and outstanding, but as a ruck, to have a mid that's that smart with what's going on in the game and someone you can lean on throughout four quarters is a big help. I’m looking forward to playing with him.”

On the team’s expectations for the year

“Yeah, we've talked a lot about it, and a lot about the external world and how we can only control what we can, and that's what we do inside the four walls. I think the one thing that last year showed us is that our recipe and the path we're on are taking us in the right direction, but we're nowhere near the final destination, so we want to keep pushing and keep getting better. It's similar to my own stuff, we've always had expectations of ourselves to get better, even when we're finishing 17th. So if anything, that just goes to another level internally, and then whatever the outside world is thinking and doing, we can hopefully block it out as best we can. I feel like the external pressure from the backend of last year started creating excitement and a bit of hype and we were able to sort of channel that into a few things in our game plan, like pressure and a couple of other key factors. Hopefully, we can keep our heads in the right direction.” 

Watch Lloyd Meek’s full press conference below.