Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell says he didn’t intentionally snub former mentor Alastair Clarkson in his AFL Hall of Fame acceptance speech.
After he was honoured on the annual dinner on Tuesday evening, Mitchell didn’t point out the four-time Hawthorn premiership coach as he thanked his household, former teammates and employees.
On Friday, he advised reporters Clarkson and his different coaches had helped him “enormously” over his profession, and he had tried to keep away from singling out people on the ceremony.
It comes after the connection between the legendary Hawthorn pair appeared strained earlier this season, with studies Clarkson doesn’t want to return from his hiatus as North Melbourne senior coach till after the Kangaroos play Hawthorn to keep away from a reunion with Mitchell and his former aspect.
“No (it was not a conscious decision), I was surprised that came up actually,” Mitchell stated when requested about his speech.
“I think my coaches in general … there’s so many people that helped you achieve things, and whether it’s the first coach you had as an under-10s kid or the coach you had for 14 years, I think all of those people help you enormously.
“I tried not to get too individual in my speech at all, and I was surprised it got picked up.”
Mitchell, who performed in 4 premierships throughout 329 video games and was retrospectively awarded the joint 2012 Brownlow Medal, stated it was “daunting” to hitch the ranks of footballing greats on Tuesday.
“You walked in there and there’s so many familiar faces you grew up admiring, and then to join them was daunting,” he stated.
“It was a bit embarrassing really, it sort of felt like it went for a while and I’m happy that it’s over now.”
He stated offering a stronger contest ahead of the ball was a key focus for the Hawks of their intriguing conflict in opposition to Carlton on Sunday, with Jacob Koschitzke omitted solely a fortnight after he booted three essential targets within the upset win over Brisbane.
“I had a really good chat with Kosi … his competing has been pretty good but he just hasn’t been able to quite duke them and hit the scoreboard as consistently as we’d like,” Mitchell stated.
“He kicked three against Brisbane a couple of weeks ago but he’s just struggled to hit the scoreboard consistently … what we need from our key forwards is that capacity to hit the scoreboard on a regular basis.
“I think as a team we’re trying to find different ways to score – we really struggled with it last week, so we thought the mix had to look a little bit different going into the Blues game.”
Mature age recruit Fergus Greene is prone to return to the aspect within the vacant key ahead position, whereas Mitchell confirmed Changkuoth Jiath would play within the VFL on lowered minutes after overcoming a calf harm.
The Hawks coach didn’t rule out deploying gun midfielder Will Day in defence for a second week, as he plans to counter Carlton twin towers Harry McKay and Charlie Curnow with out star interceptor James Sicily.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
