Hawthorn Coach Sam Mitchell spoke to the media ahead of his side’s clash Easter Monday clash with Geelong at the MCG.
Mitchell also spoke on the Dare to Hope match and its importance to the club in support of young forward Calsher Dear.
We summarised the key points from Mitchell’s Thursday morning press conference below.
On the loss to Port Adelaide
“The good thing about AFL footy is you get to play a week later. Obviously we have a little bit longer break, not playing until Monday, so we’ve still got a bit of water to go under the bridge but certainly close the door on that and learnt some lessons, as evidence has suggested when we work hard on things we can improve and we know we need to improve on what we dished up on Sunday. I think it’s really important that the players know that was a bad performance, it doesn’t make us bad. We need to perform better than that, and we know there are things that we can do in our game that will ensure that we can play better. I think the players have got a good game understanding, and we still feel like we’re a side in pretty good form. We had a really bad half of footy, and that’s not going to be competitive against the best sides and that’s what we want to be, so we’ve got some work to do but we understand that, we’ll have a good session today, we’ll train again later in the week and get ready for Monday.
On Dylan Moore in the midfield
“Obviously, once Conor Nash went out at half time, we brought Dylan up the ground because we brought Luke Breust in. I think the thing with Moorey is he creates energy wherever he goes. So sometimes you just need a spark of energy, and you need something different, and Moorey creates that. We had a good chat yesterday actually about how his strength is just that he tries really hard all the time, so I think if you had Dylan Moore’s, I think you would always be happy.”
On Jack Gunston’s influence
“Gunners is a fascinating watch, because sometimes he’s not playing but I still value him almost just as highly as I did on the weekend. So he kicked goals on the weekend and that’s fantastic, and absolutely of course we love that, but his influence has been significant even when he’s not kicking goals, even when he’s not playing. I think what he does and the reason he was able to play so well on the weekend is a large part of his role is not just kicking goals, it’s about helping his teammates, helping the people around, that’s something he handled really well. I couldn’t be more rapt with the role that both Jack and Luke Breust is the same, and Sam Frost is a little bit in that boat. Despite some of them playing, not playing, sub, their influence on our group and the culture that they create to bring other players along with them is exactly what we want and that’s making other players better. For Jack himself, kicking goals would have been fantastic, I’m sure he put his head on the pillow feeling pretty good about that one aspect but he shouldn’t feel any differently when it’s not goals that he kicks and it’s just the influence of the field that he’s having.”
On facing Geelong
“They’re a quality side, I think everyone knows what Geelong are going to produce, their worst is pretty good and their best is elite. They’re a side that if we look at our progression and what we’re trying to achieve, the evidence suggests that work hard, get better, make our way towards where we want to go and there are teams in front of us at the moment and Geelong are certainly one of those and Port Adelaide were one and we couldn’t get that one done but Geelong is another one and that’s another opportunity for us to see how far we’ve come and we know we’ve got progress, we’re far from a finished product, we’ve got plenty of work to do but we’ve got another solid test against the Cats.
On the Dare to Hope match
“It’s pretty special for us as a club, obviously very close to home for Calsher (Dear) and his father passing away recently. But also against Geelong and they had Micky Turner pass away at the end of last year as well. Geelong have really embraced it as an important topic as well and that we can bring a bit of hype around it would be great. And there’s going to be a lot of people at the game and I think most of them will probably get there a little bit early to watch a couple of old legends run around before it and a bit of a way to spread some awareness about the Dare to Hope. For us, to be able to support Calsher is obviously really important, hopefully we’ll get him back on the field soon but making sure that he feels valued by everything we do as a club and being able to support the Dare to Hope is a really important part of our club.”
Watch Mitchell’s full press conference below.
