HAWTHORN Vice-captain Jordan Lewis has admitted the Club won’t make any excuses for its 2-3 start to the year, and said the team still has a lot of improving to do to close the gap between the Hawks and genuine contenders.
 
The Hawks lost to the Sydney Swans by 37 points on Sunday despite leading by 20 points at half-time, which Lewis attributed to a number of oversights by the men in brown and gold.

"We don't come up with any excuses, other than intensity on the field," he said.

"We've been so good during the first [four-and-a-half] games, and for whatever reason it just didn't come in the second half.

"We've got to give credit to Sydney; they were great.

“We failed to get our hands on the ball, and hung our defenders out to dry when the ball got down there and the quality of Goodes and those sort of players; it’s hard to compete one-on-one with those players.

“We didn’t apply pressure in the midfield and that really hurt us when they went forward.

Lewis said Hawthorn's difficult early-season fixture was no excuse for Sunday's second-half lapse.

“We don’t come up with any excuses other than intensity and form, and stuff that we do on the field. We have six or seven days to recover during the week so that’s plenty of time to get yourself up for a game, and whether it’s been a tough draw or not, we don’t use that as an excuse at all,” Lewis said.

"The media are probably going to bash us, and so they should, but we know internally that we've played some good football this year and we've been close in games.

"But we really need to win those games to be a contender this year."
Lewis said the Hawks still had high expectations of themselves after reaching a preliminary final last year, but admitted the team wasn't up to the standard of the League's top teams on current form.

"There probably is a gap between us and the more in-form sides at this stage of the year … but hopefully we can bridge that gap before finals time," he said.