The Hawks finished the season with two encouraging wins over fellow finalists Sydney and West Coast in the final two rounds, giving the side a boost in confidence heading into its qualifying final.
Their opponents, the Magpies have enjoyed an indifferent run heading into Week 1 of the finals series, with significant losses to North Melbourne and West Coast before bouncing back against the Bombers on Saturday night.
Form lines are ignored though, when finals are played, and that is a notion to which Birchall subscribes.
“It’s pretty much a different season now, it’s finals,” he told hawthornfc.com.au on Monday.
“It all starts over again.
“We’ve beaten them [Collingwood] the last couple of times, which has been good but it’s a whole different ball game now.
“You can’t really read too much into it [Collingwood’s form], it’s a different ball game now, it’s a different season.
“They’ll start afresh and give themselves a really good chance.”
The last time the Hawks played in a final, was the 2011 Preliminary Final against this week’s opponent, Collingwood.
Of course, the Hawks were defeated by the Magpies who were beaten by the Cats in the grand final.
The preliminary final loss won’t be at the forefront of the minds of the Hawthorn players though, instead they’ll be focused on the task at hand.
“We’ll just concentrate on what Clarko’s instructions are and we’ll play to our structures,” Birchall said.
“If we bring that intensity we’ve shown in the past few weeks, we should be okay.”
The Hawks have had the perfect run into the finals series, with the Sydney and West Coast matches played in finals-like intensity.
Birchall says its been the best possible preparation.
“We were lucky to have two really hard games leading into finals, which was ideal for us,” he said.
“We were just trying to win both games, you don’t really want to flirt with your form or [tinker] with the structures leading into finals.
“The last couple of weeks have been really promising and hopefully we can continue that form on into the finals.”
Kate Salemme is a member of Hawthorn Football Club’s Digital media team reporting exclusively for hawthornfc.com.au from the Ricoh Centre.
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