THEY might all be fighting for the same spot, but Simon Taylor says Hawthorn’s ruck stocks are as close as teammates get.

Taylor spends more time with his fellow big men than any other teammates and says that closeness and friendly rivalry has spurred them on to greater heights.

“We are a pretty tight group. That is the good thing about us. We help each other and we know that if you are making the other ruckman better, you are just going to have to also make yourself better to get in front of them,” Taylor said.

The 26-year-old said that the group is always looking for ways to improve one another and that there is no holding back information that might benefit one another.

“It stemmed from when Robbie Campbell had 2005 out with a knee injury. He was great with the way he pushed me,” Taylor said.

“He knew that if I got better he had to come back better than he was to reclaim his spot. That has followed on and filtered through all of us in the last few years.”

That closeness was no more evident than last year when Brent Renouf took Taylor’s spot on the eve of the finals. History shows that Taylor didn’t win his spot back and Renouf played in a premiership side in his eighth AFL match.

While Taylor admits his disappointment at missing out, he says he was happy for his teammates to experience football’s greatest victory.

“It was one of the toughest times I’ve had in my life. But I knew I couldn’t let my emotions affect the team. They didn’t want to see anyone with their head down. I tried to stay positive for them and I’d like to think I did that and it might have been a small part of why they won,” he said.

“I was shattered after missing the grand final. I knew that the only thing I could do was put my head down and bum up and have a great pre-season to set my year up. That’s what I tried to do.”

That pre-season was rewarded with Taylor leading the Hawks in hit-outs at the midway point of the season.

A decimated defence has meant Campbell has been used more as a key defender, which has ensured more responsibility for his one-time understudy.

“It allows Robbie to go back and cover those losses we’ve had. Robbie’s done a great job back there. It gives him more flexibility and gives me more of an opportunity in the middle of the ground,” Taylor said.

Taylor regained his spot in round one, but he was back in the stands after he was suspended for two weeks for kneeing Joel Selwood. Taylor fronted the tribunal again a few weeks later for running in to Carlton’s Setanta O’hAilpin but he was cleared to play.

The big Hawk says he is conscious of overstepping the mark but has not made any drastic changes to the game despite the extra attention of the match review panel.

“I don’t really go out there and think of the tribunal at all. I’ve got to go out there and play an aggressive, physical game. That second one got thrown out because there wasn’t much in it. It was something a little bit silly I did in that first game,” he said.

“You don’t want to be getting reported but you’ve still got to have that aggressive streak in your game.”