ASSISTANT coach Adem Yze says the Hawks expect Fremantle to bring their best football on Saturday, despite last year’s minor premiers missing key personnel.

Yze said although Dockers Nat Fyfe, Aaron Sandilands, Michael Johnson, Harley Bennell and Matthew Pavlich are missing for the match, the Hawks will be wary of Fremantle.

“We’ve got to expect their best footy. We plan on seeing the Fremantle we know can play some really strong footy,” he said.

“We know they’ve got some good players out but we’ve looked at their strengths and weaknesses and we’re going to focus on the way we play.”

“Irrelevant of what they bring, the majority of our focus is how we play and hopefully down in Tassie where we like to play, we can get off to a good start.”

Yze, the Hawks’ defensive coach, said there was an element of unpredictability around Fremantle and the young players that would be playing for them on Saturday.

Experienced duo Michael Barlow and Zac Dawson (omitted) join Matthew Pavlich (rested) as the Dockers three outs, with Clancee Pearce, Zac Clarke and Ed Langdon coming into the side.

“They’ll have some young players playing who we’ll have a look at. We have to know their strengths and weaknesses,” he said.

“Obviously their forward line is a little bit different without Pavlich this weekend and their midfield is totally different with some of their A-graders out.”

Hawthorn’s defensive end has undergone some significant changes this season, with a number of young players taking on more responsibility.

Yze said the young Hawks were slotting in well and handling the extra challenges.

“They’re slotting in really well. Obviously Brand played his first game last week and looked really comfortable down there – he’ll get another go at it this week,” he said.

“There is a little bit of change going on, but I think our young blokes are handling it really well – obviously they need to get some synergy playing with our other defenders who have been playing for a long time, but we knew that would happen when Lake retired.”

“Hopefully we start to settle our back six or seven over the next few weeks and we find out what our best mix is.”

The Hawks regain key players Sam Mitchell (corked calf) and James Frawley (concussion) this week, who have both had excellent starts to the 2016 season.

“(Frawley) is a really important player for us. He plays on the opposition’s best forward every week and he’s handled himself really well,” Yze said.

“It will be good to see he and Brand play together this week - we can be more flexible with Josh Gibson’s role.”

Despite Mitchell being in arguably career best form, Yze said there was still a focus on Hawthorn spreading the load across their midfield and not relying on Mitchell too heavily.

“Mitchell’s obviously a terrific player and we want him to play well, but we want everyone else to perform as they did last week when he wasn’t there.”

“We want Mitch’s level to be really high, and if everyone else can get their level to where it should be, our midfield can be really potent.”