Sam Mitchell’s Hawthorn rebuild dangers changing into a demolition website with out some reward for effort.
Amid the concentrate on Mitchell teaching in opposition to Alastair Clarkson for the primary time, and Clarkson making his personal journey preparations for the flight again to Melbourne, Saturday’s AFL conflict in opposition to North Melbourne in Launceston is an early-season check for the Hawks.
The Kangaroos are coming off wins over West Coast and Fremantle, whereas Hawthorn are struggling after large losses to Essendon and Sydney.
This season was all the time going to be a difficult one for Mitchell and his younger crew. It dangers being an extended, barren winter except Hawthorn can carry out in opposition to fellow growing sides corresponding to North.
“Spirit and energy – it’s much easier to run on top of the ground and feel good when you’re getting reward for effort,” Mitchell stated.
“But when we’re throwing a lot of the effort down the drain by shooting ourselves in the foot with ball use and shots on goal, etc, you don’t get the reward for effort.
“It’s not an excuse – we completely ought to play the identical manner, the identical spirit, whatever the scoreboard.
“But we’re not capable of that right now and we’re going to need to play with spirit all the time. We haven’t been able to do it in the first two games.”
By distinction, Clarkson is making an attempt to strike a steadiness between specializing in the Hawks and celebrating the spirit the Kangaroos confirmed of their one-point win over Fremantle.
“We don’t want to put a harness on that type of emotion – those types of wins on the road can really galvanise a club,” he stated.
“Our club hasn’t had too many of those types of victories, or really, really stirring victories on the road, against the odds.
“We have to have a good time it for so long as we probably can with out letting it affect … it is a high quality steadiness there.
“If they do that on a consistent basis, they’re going to be in games of footy.”
But the buildup to Saturday has been all about Clarkson v Mitchell.
Clarkson coached the Hawks to 4 premierships and he had a testy relationship at occasions with Mitchell, one in every of his star gamers.
Mitchell was presupposed to take over from him in a training succession plan, but it surely fell aside and Clarkson left the Hawks a yr early on the finish of 2021.
Clarkson has additionally revealed he’ll make his personal journey plans again to Melbourne, fairly than take the constitution flight carrying the 2 groups, due to the continued inquiry into racism claims at Hawthorn throughout his teaching tenure.
North’s journey to Launceston on Friday meant they missed the funeral of membership stalwart Ron Joseph, who died earlier this month.
“We would have loved to have done a guard of honour for Ron, given his contribution to the club, but obviously we have a game of footy,” Clarkson stated.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
