HAWTHORN Coach Alastair Clarkson says winning games during the NAB Cup is just a bonus as he focuses on conditioning his players for the start of the home and away season.
The Club has named a mix of experience and youth for its opening hit out of the pre-season competition against Gold Coast and Brisbane at Metricon Stadium on Saturday night.
Stars Lance Franklin, Cyril Rioli, Josh Gibson and Matt Suckling are among a the list of experienced Hawks making the trip to Queensland, while youngsters Jed Anderson, Kaiden Brand and Tim O’Brien will wear the brown and gold for the first time.
Clarkson says the NAB Cup is the ideal time to expose his young players to the rigors of AFL, pitting them against senior players from both the Suns and Lions.
“It’s a good chance to give some of our younger players on our list an opportunity against senior company in Brisbane and Gold Coast,” he said at Melbourne Airport on Friday.
“It’s just a great opportunity for some of our young guys…it’s great exposure for the young players and hopefully they’ll get good experience out of it and see where it helps throughout the course of the year.”
Among those not travelling to the sunshine state are Captain Luke Hodge, Sam Mitchell, Shaun Burgoyne and injured pair Michael Osborne and Brendan Whitecross.
Clarkson says Hodge, Mitchell and Burgyone remain on track for the opening rounds of the 2013 season, despite being left out of Saturday night’s matches.
He admits winning games during pre-season is a bonus, and is instead focusing on the conditioning of his experienced players.
“Across the 18 clubs it’s all about game time and managing the conditioning of your players,” he said.
“If you happen to get wins along the line as well, that’s great too.”
“We’ll be trying to win games of footy but at the same time we won’t be compromising the preparation of our players by playing guys who just aren’t quite ready yet.”
The Hawks coach revealed though, the Round 1 Easter Monday blockbuster against Geelong isn’t a non-negotiable for some of his senior players.
“Some of our more older players just aren’t ready in terms of their preparation just yet but hopefully they’ll get into it in NAB games two and three where they can,” he said.
“Round 1 isn’t necessarily the focus for some of the older players on the list, we just want to take a healthy group into our Round 1 game against Geelong.
“If our more experienced players are part of that, great but if not, we’re not too concerned about it.
“We want to make sure we’ve got a line up who are ready to go.”
