Hawthorn Senior Coach Sam Mitchell has called on the Hawthorn faithful to pack the MCG stands ahead of the club’s first Friday night home game in six years.
Mitchell thanked the club’s members and fans for continuing to support the Hawks through the good times and bad over the years, and knows Friday night’s match will be another big occasion to savour.
Addressing the media on Wednesday morning, Mitchell also discussed James Worpel’s injury, Will Day’s form and Changkuoth Jiath’s availability.
We summarised the key points from his media conference below.
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On Friday night’s match
“It’s great to have a big home game, and it’s the first chance for the brown and gold to come out and support us. I think over the last few years, they've actually done a great job of turning up for us. So I’m really excited, hopefully we can get close to packing out the MCG on a Friday night to play the old rivals.
I think the challenge of playing in big games and big pressure, it is what you make it and our group's been really strong and really consistent with (the fact that) we want to be in big games. We want to be in big moments. We're playing against Essendon, who are a huge club with a fantastic history and the history between the two clubs is obviously significant. So a lot of Hawks fans, and a lot of Bombers fans, perhaps aren't in love with each other too much. That'll start to ebb away over the next 48 hours, but Friday night footy at the MCG against the Bombers? I think I'd like to be there.”
On James Worpel’s injury
“It's disappointing for him, he's been in fantastic form. I think he's been our best-performing midfielder across the pre-season and he started the game really well on the weekend. So to lose such a resilient player who's played so much footy for us is disappointing, but it creates opportunities. We’ve got quite a few guys that were disappointed that they had to miss out last week. So we'll go through some selection this afternoon and come up with the final team. But there's plenty of guys knocking on the door and that's the challenge for the guys not in the side.”
On Will Day’s Opening Round performance
“He's a super professional performer. He's had a lot of impact injuries. It's not like he's been out for soft tissue, or all the ones that are slightly more controllable. I think, with Daysy, you hope he can put together a full season and he's giving himself every chance. The midfield group, holistically, don't rely on any individual. So the fact that he was able to perform really well in the first half and then other players stepped up and the second half of the game to give us a pretty good performance was important. I think when you look at Essendon, they've obviously got a couple of big names in their midfield, but if you look at their consistency all across their midfield as well, I think it'll be a pretty evenly matched group.”
Watch Mitchell’s full press conference below
