HAWTHORN Coach Alastair Clarkson says the Club is using the pre-season competition to manage its players ahead of the home-and-away season.
Clarkson fronted the media before boarding a flight to Launceston, where the Club will take on the competition's newest side, Greater Western Sydney at Aurora Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
"While you're interested in winning, you're more interested in your pattern of play," Clarkson told the media at Melbourne airport.
"It's a very precarious time of year for players, and we need to be looking after them as best we can."
The Hawks have named a side with a mixture of youth and experience, but that has nothing to do with their opposition, the Giants who have a wealth of young talent.
"It's just using the four weeks to give some of those young kids a taste of AFL footy," he said.
"It's all about getting game time into as many of our players heading into round one."
The subsitute rule enforced for this year's pre-season compeition has been a talking point so far, with clubs allowed only two interchange players and two subsitutes - compared with three bench players and one subsitute in the season proper.
It is a rule change that affects a clubs' ability to manage their players through the pre-season competition.
"This substitute rule actually limits the flexibility to manage your players as well as you'd like to in the lead up to round one," he said.
"Certainly in preparation for this time (of year) to be able to manage the loads of players, and to be able to roatate them in or out is really handy."
Clarkson also believes that the extended bench will provide clubs with the opportunity to expose more of their youngsters to AFL football.
"We're playing less of our younger kids in this (pre-season) campaign because it's so difficult to get them in - you can't just throw them in for a quarter or a half", he said.
A Hawks youngster who will get the opportunity to play his first match in the brown and gold, however, is rookie listed player Amos Frank who was drafted to the Club with selection 34 in December's Rookie Draft.
"He's a livewire small forward whose got good pace, good skills on both side of his body and quite good defensive pressure", Clarkson said of the 23-year-old.
"I'm sure he'll acquit himself well and we're really looking forward to seeing what he can contribute to our side throughout the course of the year."
Kate Salemme is a member of Hawthorn Football Club’s digital media team reporting exclusively for hawthornfc.com.au from the Ricoh Centre.
Hear full coverage of Clarkson's press conference from Melbourne Airport.
