Hawthorn Senior Coach Sam Mitchell said his side won’t underestimate the in-form North Melbourne ahead of the Saturday afternoon clash at UTAS Stadium.
Mitchell also shared his excitement for forward Mitch Lewis, who will make his return from an ACL injury through the VFL this weekend.
We've summarised the key points from Mitchell’s press conference on Thursday morning.
On Mitch Lewis’ return via the VFL
“Very exciting to get Mitch Lewis back playing some footy in the VFL, so very excited for that one. I was very excited when I saw him today, he’s cut his hair and he was growing his hair long until he felt “I’m ready to play” so he came in today with the haircut and the boys were pretty excited about that. I mean he has looked ready to play, I think sometimes when guys come back from a knee they look tentative and he definitely had that but I would say probably for the last maybe five or six weeks, he’s looked ready to my eye and to everyone watching training. And there’s a part of you that’s like, I’m watching him train thinking why isn’t he playing, but you certainly have a lot of trust in the medical team and making sure that they go through their due diligence and play the percentages in the right way. But he’s definitely ready and very excited to get back out there.”
On facing North Melbourne
“I mean their last month has been really good, they’re the number one between the arcs stoppage team, they’re really potent in their front half of the ground, they’ve got some huge talent. I think in years gone by (Nick) Larkey was such a huge portion of their team and he still is, they’ve got (Cameron) Zurhaar now that’s kicked a lot of goals this year, (Paul) Curtis is putting huge scores on the board as well, really quite a dangerous front half. And then their midfield is obviously stacked with talent, a lot of early picks, a lot of talent in the middle of the ground and when you’re playing against the ruckman who’s so physical as well, I think that’s going to be quite a contest in the middle of the ground. And we know we’re going to have to be able to get the ball into the front half regularly to kick a big enough score, because the way they’re playing, they haven’t always put it on the scoreboard but I think if you look at their last six or eight weeks they’ve been consistently in games right ‘til the end and sometimes a couple of the better teams have got a hold of them late which has blown the scores out, but they’ve been in every game for a long period of time now so we’re definitely not taking them lightly.”
On key focuses this weekend
"We very much control the controllables for us, as boring a coach talk as that is. The thing that we know about us is, our first quarters in Tassie haven’t been great, we’ve had a couple of games there, we’ve been jumped the two games there this year, so we know we’re going to have to be sharper early in the game and making sure that if we can be with them (North Melbourne) and get an advantage early in the game that’ll give us our best chance. They’ve had some unusual statistical games where they’ve had inside 50s dominant and lost the game and vice versa, so we know that they can play in multiple ways to win and to give themselves competitive advantage so we have to be pretty strong.”
Watch Mitchell's full press conference below.
