HAWTHORN believes its last five matches have prepared it well for Saturday’s Grand Final.
Belief is a strong quality in football and the Hawks have it in spades given the challenges it has overcome in recent weeks.
Obviously, the win over Geelong in the Preliminary Final has given the side the most confidence but that is not to underestimate the influence and impact victories over Collingwood, North Melbourne and Sydney have had on the Hawks.
It was a challenging end to the season for Hawthorn, having played those three teams in the final three rounds of the home-and-away season.
They won all three of those games but not without a fight.
Hawthorn was challenged by Collingwood and trailed the Kangaroos and Swans by four goals in the first half of the final two matches.
With belief in its game plan and the ability to adapt and change to different match conditions, the Hawks withstood the pressure and eventually answered the challenge with grit, determination and polish.
They are three games in addition to the Qualifying and Preliminary Finals that the Hawthorn players believe hold it in good stead for Saturday’s Grand Final.
“We think it’s really important to play tough sides coming into finals – our last three games of the year were tough games and the same goes for our two finals so far,” defender Josh Gibson told hawthornfc.com.au
“You don’t want to have easy winning games because they don’t prepare you for finals footy.
“We’ve felt like our lead in has been really good, we’ve been challenged at times and been able to come back and win, which has been really promising.”
It was a sentiment echoed by fellow defender, Ben Stratton.
One of the heroes of the Preliminary Final, Stratton took two crucial marks in the dying stages and completed a vital chase down of Geelong forward James Podsiadly in the third quarter which stopped a certain goal.
He says it is the experience of those matches that has best prepared him for this year’s finals series.
“The last three or four weeks, we’ve had some really tough games but it’s so important to have those games under our belts especially leading into the biggest game,” he told hawthornfc.com.au
“Sometimes you relish those hard games and even though you pull up pretty sore - in the next couple of weeks you benefit from them most when you’re in another tough game because you’re ready to go and know what to do because you’ve experienced it before.
“(They are better) than having a bruise-free game as such and thinking you’re going alright but you’re not really ready for a big contest.
“Those games at the end of our season have been really important.”
But to come from a 20 points behind in the Preliminary Final, Stratton says the group can’t help but take confidence from that into Saturday’s Grand Final against Fremantle.
“To come from 20 points down at three-quarter time is important for the belief,” he said.
“We showed we’ve got that throughout the game because we were always at them and kept grinding them down because we knew it would turn our way eventually.
“The game is just going to go up and down, there’ll be ebbs and flows so if you can stay calm under pressure and when you’re up, make the most of your opportunities and then when your opposition is up, stem the flow a bit and get control of the game.
“That’ll be really important.”
