HAWTHORN may have been nominated by 11 captains as the team most likely to play in the Grand Final this season but Hawks skipper Luke Hodge is paying no heed to the vote.

The Hawks were clearly the most supported team to make the premiership decider in the AFL captains' survey, ahead of West Coast with four votes, Geelong with two and Collingwood with one.

The only opinions that matter to Hodge though, are those inside the Hawks camp.

"We're only focused on what you can do inside the footy club," Hodge said at a gathering of all 18 AFL captains at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art.

"It's good that other teams think we're in a position to go that far, but when you first get to a footy club you get taught to block out external opinions.

"Whether it's the paper or other teams or other players, whatever they say, whether it's good or bad."

Hodge continued to give little away, avoiding the hype surrounding the 2012 Hawks.

"Pretty much all we're focused on is Collingwood and Geelong, then closely behind them are Carlton and West Coast," he said.

"We've got Collingwood and Geelong the first two and it's going to be difficult but we'll be able to reassess where we are from there.

"We just focus on what we can control and what your group says.

"As far as that goes, we've prepared ourselves as good as we can, the majority of guys have got through the pre-season.

"We've got 40-odd blokes putting their hands up for round one and it's a great spot to be in.

One concern for the Hawks is their ruck stocks, with Max Bailey going down with a wrist injury that has him sidelined until at least round six.

"Unfortunately [he] hurt his wrist last week and will miss a few weeks, but it gives Broc McCauley and a couple of our young ruckmen a chance to put their hands up to play some senior footy," Hodge said.

"Out of everyone, we probably didn't want the ruck stocks to get injured considering we're a bit short with them. That's footy. We'll give another bloke a chance and hopefully he can take the ruck from there."

The news with Jarryd Roughead is more positive with the forward pushing to play in round one.

When asked if the 25-year-old was any hope of a round one start, Hodge laughed: "Depends who you speak to … he thinks he will.

"Speaking to Clarko, probably not.

"We have got a reasonably fresh list and we have a lot of guys up and ready to go so I don't think they are going to push him in any earlier [than necessary].

"They're going to want good match play out of him, they don't want to play him for 50 or 60 per cent of the game, so hopefully from round two or three onwards but there definitely isn't going to be any risk with him."