He's played 222 AFL games, 146 of which have been victorious, but Liam Shiels says the side's one-point win over Essendon on Saturday night was "one of the more memorable wins" he has played in.
The Hawks trailed the Bombers by 39 points at half-time before mounting an epic comeback to post an opening round win.
Speaking to SEN Breakfast on Monday morning, Shiels said it was pleasing to avenge the Bombers after they pulled off a similar feat in the rivals' Round 14 clash last year.
"Definitely in recent times I'd say it's one of the more memorable wins I've played in," Shiels said.
"Up against Essendon, I think they did a similar thing to us last year over in Adelaide, we might not have been up by quite so much, but they came back from a fair deficit at half-time to beat us.
"So, it's always nice to get off to a good start."
Shiels said the Hawks found themselves at a crossroads at the main break after a poor second term that saw them concede eight goals to the Bombers.
But, praising a number of his teammates, the three-time premiership Hawk said he couldn't have been prouder of the side's resilient response.
"I don't know what happened in the second quarter, that was some pretty poor footy that we played there, but we got a chance to re-group at half-time.
"We had a few choices to make - we could have turned our toes up and we could have probably got thumped.
"To the credit of guys like Dylan Moore who I think had one touch in the first half and then comes out in the third quarter and has 14 touches and kicks three goals, we had a number of guys who were able to turn their form around in the second half.
"As a midfield group, we were getting beaten around the footy in the second quarter and then guys like Tommy Mitchell and Jaeger O'Meara really started to lead the way.
"So, I thought it was a credit to us that we were able to bounce and get back into the game."
