Hawthorn Senior Coach Sam Mitchell has acknowledged his side needs to be at its best as the Hawks prepare to face the top-four placed Adelaide Crows at UTAS Stadium on Friday night. 

In the city’s first-ever Friday night game, Mitchell is expecting a great battle, with both teams coming off wins in Round 13. 

The Hawks coach also congratulated his premiership teammate Luke Hodge on his induction into the Australian Football Hall of Fame on Tuesday night. 

We summarised the key points from Mitchell’s press conference on Wednesday morning. 

On Luke Hodge’s Hall of Fame induction 

“It was great to see Hodgey go into the Hall of Fame. I think Gerard (Whateley) does a great job with the interviews, with some of the stories that you hear. He had such a storied career, all the way from being the first pick and learning about professionalism and becoming the great leader that he did. He’s such a team-orientated superstar and I’m glad that he got the accolades he deserves across his career. Last night was a great night of celebration for him and his family. I think we all have our own stories about learning about professionalism. For some, it’s when you’re a teenager and for some, it takes a little bit longer but full credit to the career that Hodgey had. I hope that one day he ends up in coaching because I think he’d be very, very good in that area as well. He’s obviously loving his media work at the moment and doing a really good job of it.” 

On Adelaide 

“Adelaide have been very potent and very offensive. Early on in the season, everyone was raving about their potency but they’ve really rounded their game out now nicely. Defensively, they’ve been really sound. We had a lot of trouble with Brisbane a couple of weeks ago and they were able to get the job done last week against them. We’ve looked at their game and they’re a very good pressure side, they’re very good in front of goal but also… they’re defending well. They’re pretty well-rounded in the way that they play and we’re going to have to be at our best.”

On playing at UTAS Stadium

“Statistically you would say that it (UTAS Stadium) does (help the Hawks win), but it's still going to have four goal posts and the same amount of players on the field. We love going down there and obviously it's a really happy and comfortable environment for us. I think it’s the first Friday night game there so that’s something new for the state. We’re really excited to get down there. We obviously haven’t played there for a little while now but we’ve got a couple of games coming up which is exciting for us.”

Watch Mitchell’s full press conference below