Hawthorn has announced its 29-man squad to take on the Cats in Round 1 of the JLT Community Series, with Jarryd Roughead headlining a number of big name inclusions.
GM- Football and Operations Jason Burt says that while a close eye will be kept on Roughead, he believes the new skipper is ready for the challenge.
“There aren’t any restrictions on Rough in terms of how long he plays for,” said Burt.
“We’ll just see how he handles the loads. He’s been out of the game a long time, but he’s fit and well and ready to go.”
Teia Miles and Dallas Willsmore are two young Hawks that are yet to make their senior debut, but have impressed coaching staff enough across the course of the pre-season to warrant their selection.
“Teia and Dallas have had really good pre-seasons on the back of great VFL years last year.
“They’ve both been really consistent.
“They also both went to Kokoda in the pre-season and we’ve seen some huge benefits in each of them as a result, which is pleasing for the club.”
Read: Hawthorn announce 29-man JLT squad
Ty Vickery and Jaeger O’Meara are both set to don the brown and gold for the first time on Friday, and Burt says the club see the JLT Series as a great learning opportunity for the two recruits.
“Ty’s still learning the way we go about things, so this is the best opportunity he’s had all summer to test himself in our system.”
“In regards to Jaeger, we’re not expecting too much in terms of his game time and performance on Friday night.
“It’s more about the exposure to our system, which I know will be really beneficial for him.”
With big names Tom Mitchell and Luke Hodge both absent from Hawthorn’s 29-man squad, Burt describes pre-season selection as a “juggling act” when trying to get game time into a broad mix of players.
“We’ve got a lot of young players we want to see, and then you’ve got a lot of time that you need to put into other players too so it does become a bit of a juggling act.”
“Right now, it’s in our best interest that Tom doesn’t play this game, but we will assess things as we head into JLT 2.
“Even though Hodgey hasn’t been named in the squad, he will still be travelling to Launceston with the team, so it will be great having him there to offer some guidance to the younger players and also to Rough in his first game as captain.”
