Hawthorn Coach Sam Mitchell said his side was “taught a lesson” following Sunday night’s 30-point loss against Port Adelaide at the Adelaide Oval.

Speaking to the media post-match, Mitchell touched on his post-game message to the players, the decision to sub Conor Nash out of the game and the side’s last-quarter fightback. 

We summarised the key points from his press conference below.

On his post-game message to the players 

“(We asked) a few questions. Where did we go wrong? They obviously taught us a bit of a lesson tonight and we got a bit torn. We would’ve loved to have played much better than that. The first half of that game was unacceptable and not the way we want to play and not the style and level of gameplay that we try to produce and we were trying to work out why, so I was just chatting to the players about whether there was anything that told you that might have been coming? So there’s a bit of discussion around that sort of thing. There’s a little bit of, we’re four and one so not in a terrible position on the year, but it doesn’t feel like that right in this moment does it? So there was a bit of chat about that.”

On Conor Nash

“He hurt his wrist. The medical team sort of said he could keep playing if we needed him to but I really wanted to get Luke Breust on. We were 10 goals down at half-time and I’ve got Luke Breust sitting there. Nashy wasn’t probably having his greatest influence plus he had a bit of a sore wrist and he’s shouldered a fair bit of load when he’s doing some ruck work plus tagging some pretty good players across the early part of the year plus just playing as a mid, so the chance to get him out and Punky in was the opportunity that we took. But I don’t think it was anything worrisome.”

On the team’s last quarter 

“They kicked a goal and then they kicked a centre bounce goal and then they got the second one so they kicked three goals in 20 seconds, pretty much. They were in sort of ‘save the game’ mode, they weren’t playing with the same vibrancy and energy that they were earlier in the game. When it got back to close, it was like, we’re onto something here, let’s keep playing with some energy and take a bit of risk. But I didn’t think we deserved to win. Even if we had have come back to win that game from the 22 points (down), if we had have got those three goals and had have had found a way, I wouldn’t be sitting here saying we deserved to win that. I don’t think we deserved to win, I thought we got taught a lesson and we got what we deserved.” 

Watch Mitchell’s full post-match press conference below.