SILENCING the crowd will be a key factor for Hawthorn at Adelaide Oval on Thursday night, according to Assistant Coach Brett Ratten.
The sixth-placed Hawks will take on the seventh-placed Adelaide Crows, with both sides in need of a win to keep in touch with the top four.
It will be the Hawks’ second visit to Adelaide Oval this season following a narrow eight-point defeat to Port Adelaide in Round 4.
A massive crowd of 50,321 people converged on the Crows’ home ground for the clubs’ corresponding fixture in Round 17 last season – and Ratten believes the crowd can have a big impact.
“We know how the crowd is over there, having played there earlier this year,” he said.
“Hopefully we can keep the crowd silent, that would be fantastic.
“If we hear no noise we’re doing our job – we’re scoring and winning lots of the ball.
“If the crowd is involved it will nearly be an extra person for them, so hopefully we can dull the crowd and get things on our terms.”
Both the Hawks and Crows will be returning from the bye and raring to go.
Ratten said the break had been beneficial, but it was straight back to business as usual as the Hawks chase a third consecutive win.
“Really we just started a normal week – but instead of starting on a Monday it just starts a bit earlier because of the Thursday night game,” he said.
“Straight after the St Kilda game the players got a few extra days off, so they got to go away and break that routine of AFL footy.
“It’s just a nice spell for everyone to recharge their batteries.”
The Hawks will return from the bye with almost a full complement of players to choose from.
Ratten said the selection headaches were a positive for the club, with Ben McEvoy, Will Langford, Matt Spangher, Paul Puopolo and Grant Birchall on the comeback from injury.
“We look strong across the list with personnel available which is great, so hopefully we start to get some continuity with blokes getting back and not missing out through injury,” he said.
McEvoy, Langford and Spangher all returned from injury through the VFL prior to the bye, while Ratten said Puopolo was “ready to go” and Birchall was “really close” to returning.
