Hawthorn Senior Coach Sam Mitchell is forecasting a “really good game” against Melbourne on Saturday afternoon at the MCG.

The Hawks last faced the Demons in Round 2 last year and suffered a 55-point loss, but Mitchell is backing his side to turn it around this weekend.

Speaking to the media on Thursday morning, the Hawks coach also congratulated Josh Ward ahead of his 50th game and touched on the joy of last week’s Centenary Match.

We summarised the key points from his press conference below. 

On the Dees 

“We haven’t played them for quite a while, since very early last season. We’ve certainly changed a few things but they’ve won their last three now. I think I said I watched them a month ago and you could see what they were trying to do, the best of Melbourne was in front of them and it feels like that. It feels like there’s improvement in their game and they’re really starting to master a couple of tweaks that they’ve made to their game style this year and certainly watching the way they go about it, their ladder position is probably a bit misleading, they’re playing some really good footy and it’s going to be a really good game.”

On managing Tom Barrass this week

"We look at load management and how we want to manage the list across the whole season and be quite well prepared. Tom Barrass won't play this game. When we recruited him, we didn't think he would play every game for the season. He has had a really good block, played every game, been in good form for us. We thought that the chance of him playing every minute of every game consistently was going to be difficult. He could play [this week] but we're going to manage his training loads this week. It won't surprise me if we do that from this point on a couple of times throughout the year. It is a challenging period for us with load management and list management. We've also got some guys playing really well that we'd like to give some exposure to. Obviously, winning is first and foremost – we don't want to sacrifice that – but being able to win as many games is the focus.”

On how Calsher Dear is progressing 

"He is getting closer. We will have final match committee after this; I don't want to give away too much. Certainly last week we didn't consider him available and now its whether or not it's best for him to play. We'd certainly like to get him back in, but we want to do it at the best time for him, so that may be this week, or may be a bit further down the road.”

On last week’s Centenary Match

“I think the club did a fantastic job of putting it all together. I think there were 165 past players there and a lot of them brought families. I think the fact that everyone was able to come back. For however long you play, you commit an enormous amount to your work and you pour a lot into it. For those guys to all have a chance to come back and spend some time with each other, I think it’s fantastic for the past players. I know John Kennedy has done a fantastic job with growing the impact of that group over the past few years. For our current players to knock shoulders with so many club greats who have made the club what it is, I think they’re all proud to wear the colours because of the people who came before. We’ve talked a lot about the history but when history’s right on your door step, like it was last week, it made it a bit more real for them.”

On Josh Ward’s upcoming 50th game 

“Wardy’s shown great resilience. I think he got drafted early and got a lot of games. I had a really good conversation with him early in the year - he played a lot of footy in his first year and how much better he is now, but he didn’t start the season in the side. He’s had to build a little resilience and we knew that would be part of his journey at some stage. And certainly now it doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere, does it? So I’m really pleased. Players get some knocks around. It’s very rare that you get in and you stay in forever so Josh Weddle’s done that, he played his 50th last week without missing but for most players, whether it’s through injury or form or playing some Box Hill games and Wardy’s been in that boat, so for him to get to 50 reasonably quickly still and be able to go from strength to strength in his game, I think we’ve seen growth in his football and he’s been able to put together a pretty good season so far.”

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Watch Mitchell's full press conference below.