RECRUIT Brian Lake is desperate to make his Hawthorn debut against Collingwood on Sunday, fellow defender Josh Gibson says.

Lake played his first game since round one of the NAB Cup in the VFL at the weekend, after a calf injury and then a 'corkie' interrupted his lead-in to the season.

He faces a fight to win senior selection after the Hawks' backline performed particularly well in the 50-point win over West Coast last round, but Gibson says he would welcome the extra help.

"It's only [Tuesday] now, so I can't tell you how they're going to pick the side, but speaking to him this morning, he's pulled up well and he's just rapt to be playing some footy again," Gibson said at Waverley on Tuesday.

"He's chomping at the bit.

"Everyone wants to be playing senior footy, especially at a new club.

"It'd be a nice little delicacy if we could slot him in there, but so far the guys have been doing a fantastic job.

"So if he gets up to play, that'd be great, but we can't rely on hoping that he's going to play."

On Monday, Hawks head of coaching and development Chris Fagan told hawthornfc.com.au that major changes to the team that toppled the Eagles were unlikely.

"He (Lake) got through well, so he's got the one game under his belt, which is great, but he obviously just needs to keep playing and get that match conditioning, and he'll be somewhere thereabouts," Fagan said.

"We haven't really chatted about the team for the weekend yet, but the guys who played yesterday performed well, and provided nobody pulls up sore or is too fatigued from the game, you wouldn't think we'd change our team a great deal."

Hawthorn's defence will face a stern test against imposing Magpies duo Travis Cloke and Quinten Lynch, but Gibson said such tasks were par for the course.

"It seems that every week now, the other team has got two big forwards," he said.

"The other week we had 'Pods' (James Podsiadly) and [Tom] Hawkins, and then we had [Jack] Darling and [Josh] Kennedy.

"So it's just another week at the office, I guess, of having to play on the 'gorillas'.

"But we love playing on the best guys, and the back six have been playing really well as a unit, so hopefully we can continue that on the weekend."

Midfielder Brad Sewell was subbed off on Sunday with what Fagan described as hamstring "awareness".

He had scans on Monday, with the club set to provide an update on the results on Tuesday afternoon.