HAWK defender Ben Stratton faces two big jobs at the MCG on Saturday.

The first will be obvious to the 100,000 fans in attendance and the millions watching on TV.

As one of Hawthorn's most established and versatile defenders, he will have a critical role against Fremantle in the Grand Final and could stand either lead-up forward Chris Mayne or the mercurial small forward Michael Walters.

They are different types of players but Stratton's great strength this year has been his ability to play tall or small. 

This new string to his bow has been brought about because of the pre-season knee injuries to rebounding defender Matthew Suckling and also to key defender Ryan Schoenmakers. Sam Mitchell has moved back to provide some of the rebound but so too has Stratton, whose main weapon until now has been his contested marking and ability to read the play.

"We had to do a bit of rejigging down there but it has worked out pretty well at the moment," he said at Waverley Park this week. 

"It changes week to week, definitely. Some weeks I play on a small, other weeks it's the third tall or the resting ruckman."

Stratton looks at home on the smalls, but brought back memories of his contested marking with two critical grabs during the tense final minutes of the preliminary final against Geelong last Friday. One repelled a threatening forward thrust by the Cats, while another in the forward line enabled the Hawks to retain possession at a critical time late in the game and created another scoring opportunity.

"It was good to take a few clunks in the last quarter, but everyone does their part during the game. It's just that mine was in the last 10 minutes," he said.

The 24-year-old's other important job on Saturday will largely go sight unseen. Or unheard, more to the point. 

Only the privileged few in the Hawthorn rooms will be privy to the pre-game playlist that Hawthorn's resident DJ has been charged with preparing for the 90 minutes or so before the game.

"There will be a lot of pressure to get it right," he said with a laugh. "They'll blame me for getting it wrong."

He started work on the playlist on Saturday afternoon. Look for plenty of Kanye West and Jay-Z, and perhaps a bit of Flume for a change-up.

And there won't be a repeat of anything from last year's Grand Final playlist. It's not that Stratton and the Hawks are superstitious or anything like that. But times and tastes change very quickly.

"I'm pretty nervous about having to start it. They'll be all different songs, keeping up with the times and I'll come up with the best playlist that will get the boys fired up."

And just like the 2012 playlist, so too has the losing Grand Final to the Sydney Swans from last year been banished from his memory.

"I think we moved on pretty quickly," he said. "It was a tough game but you have to move on and if you dwell on it, we wouldn't be in the position we are now."