RESILIENCE. It’s the mark of any good AFL player and Kyle Cheney has it in spades.

The Hawthorn defender has copped his fair share of criticism in his 38-game career and after he was beaten by Tom Hawkins in the final quarter of the side’s loss to the Cats in Round 5, that criticism was amplified.

But he’s never been one to hide or shy away from a challenge and approached his duel with the match-winning Cat in the same vein.

Although he was beaten in the final term, the experience of playing on another of the game’s elite players only added to his ability to continue learning his craft.

“There aren’t too many players in the AFL system who would just give up and I’m in a position where I’ve got to fight any way I can just to keep my spot in the team,” Cheney told hawthornfc.com.au

With Lake injured and suspended for the opening five games, Cheney was handed the task of standing the game’s best forwards and opened the year with Brisbane’s Jonathan brown.

He has battled and fought with great heart well above his height and weight range against Hawkins, Brown, Matthew Pavlich, Kurt Tippett and Lance Franklin and improved his one-on-one game with each challenge.

Still young in terms of games played, Cheney’s maturity allows him to never once drop his head but rather use each game as a valuable learning experience to hopefully cement his place in Hawthorn’s best 22.

“(I learnt) not only from that game (against Geelong) but also every game leading up to that I’d had a pretty tough opponent,” he said.

“In Round 1 it was Jonathan Brown and I’ve played on Mathew Pavlich and Hawkins and players like that so I’ve learnt in every game thus far, not just the Round 5 game.”

Playing the roles on the game’s biggest and best forwards was foreign to the former Demon until last year, where he took on that role more often with the Club’s VFL affiliate, Box Hill.

The role seemed to suit the 186cm defender so much that he won the best and fairest in a premiership year.

“It’s a bit different playing on those types of forwards but I’m enjoying the challenge each week,” he said.

Although he’s undersized, he doesn’t see that as a disadvantage but rather a chance to create more opportunities for Hawthorn’s damaging half-backs and hurt his opponent on the ground, too.

“When the forwards are moving around I can go with them and in the air I’m alright,” he said.

“I fight to bring the ball to ground because when it is there, I see that as an advantage for me against a taller opponent.

“The majority of my role is to bring it to ground because we’ve got such damaging half backers in ‘Suckers’ (Matt Suckling), Taylor Duryea, Grant Birchall and even Shaun Burgoyne when he’s there.

“They’re so damaging with their feet and cause a bit of a headache for their opposition forwards so the more we can get it on our terms, the better it will be.”

He has taken the experiences there and implemented those in the AFL this season and taken on too, elements of teammate Josh Gibson’s game.

Gibson, one of the game’s best readers of the game and an elite spoiler, Cheney has aimed to take that aspect of his teammate’s game and done it with success.

Already this year Cheney has become a great spoiler and third-man up to help out his defensive teammates and is ranked second at the Club behind Gibson for one percenters.

“That’s the way that we as defenders want to play because Josh leads the way in that area so we take a leaf out of his book and always want to play that way to help each other out,” he said.

“It’s not as if anyone is just on their on, it is a back six or seven and we work well together.

With Gibson now out for up to 10 weeks with a torn pectoral muscle and Lake still missing with a calf injury, the task of stopping the game’s best forwards is again in the hands of Cheney.

But he’s not backing away from the challenge and it starts with Port Adelaide on Saturday night.

“We approach it much the same if those guys were there,” he said.

“The depth of the team is unbelievable and it just goes to show that with both teams winning the premiership (Hawthorn and Box Hill), the depth is really good.

“If one guy goes out, we can replace him with another one who is just as capable.

“There are a lot of injuries at the Club but internally we’re still very confident in the roles everyone can play.

“That’s all we need to do is come in and play our role and keep ticking the boxes.”