Watch Brad Sewell discuss the defensive side of his game.

HAWTHORN star Sam Mitchell says the defensive work of midifeld teammates Jordan Lewis and Brad Sewell are the cornerstone to team success.

Lewis, a Club vice-captain this season limited St Kilda star Nick Dal Santo to just 14 disposals, while gathering 22 himself before being named in the Club's best players in Saturday night's win.

“The last couple of years he’s played that role on and off, he’s been able to not tag necessarily, but just be accountable for someone and try to stem their influence,” Mitchell told hawthornfc.com.au.

“On the weekend I think he got the balance just about right, he was able to have a good influence himself and then be able to shut down his opponent.

“When you’ve got midfielders, and he’s a decorated player himself, but being able to have someone like that do the job for you on one of the key players for the opposition is important.”

Mitchell said that the ability of his midfield teammates to keep their opponent’s influence minimal, while having an impact offensively for the Hawks is something that the team has been working on in order to achieve success.

“Brad Sewell did a pretty good job on Lenny Hayes for the majority of the night,” he said.

“That’s part of the positive of our side, is that we’ve got guys that are willing to play their role for the team’s success.

“Guys like Jordan and Brad Sewell, they’re very important players because of their ability to do that, to play offensively even when they’re doing a primarily defensive role.”

Saturday night’s game marked the return of Grant Birchall who missed two matches through injury, as Luke Hodge and Liam Shiels found form after long lay offs.

The form of those three players, Mitchell said was one of the biggest positives to come out of the 35-point victory.

“Having some of those guys (Isaac Smith, Grant Birchall, Liam Shiels and Luke Hodge) get back into the side and actually contribute and play well was probably the big upside from the weekend,” he said.

Hawthorn defenders Birchall, Hodge, Matt Suckling and Brent Guerra had 90 disposals between them on Saturday night, once again displaying the Hawks’ ability to turn defence into attack.

That rebound ability, however, isn’t something in which the backline is preoccupied.

“Our defence is really important to our structure, they play a very tight defensive game first and foremost,” Mitchell said.

“(But) once they get the footy, they’re very good rebounders.

“We’ve got a lot of good users of the footy, when we play our best footy I think our defenders get a bit of the ball.

“Guys like Birchall, Suckling and Guerra, when these guys play well, we play our best footy.”

The Hawks face Melbourne at the MCG on Friday night, but Hawthorn players won’t be taking their opponents lightly despite the Demons' winless start to the season.

“What we try and focus on is playing our best footy," Mitchell said.

"We won on the weekend but we didn’t play fantastic footy, so we want to play better.

“There are areas of our game that we want to improve and we’re going to try and do that by Friday night."

Kate Salemme is a member of Hawthorn Football Club’s Digital media team reporting exclusively for hawthornfc.com.au from the Ricoh Centre.