Hawthorn is ready for a big test against Collingwood on Thursday night at the MCG.
Senior Coach Sam Mitchell spoke to the media about his side's work on matching it with the competition's heavyweights following last week's 14-point loss against the ladder-leading Adelaide Crows.
He also provided an update on Will Day's injury while also praising the depth of the team, with many players from Box Hill's side pushing for senior selection.
We summarised the key points from his press conference on Wednesday below.
On Collingwood
“Last time we played them we weren’t strong enough around the ball and couldn’t put enough pressure on them. Being able to increase that and get the ball into our front half … last time we played them, they were really efficient going forward. So being able to defend their ball movement a bit better will be a big focus for us this week."
On playing top teams in the run home
"We want to put ourselves into a position where we play big games against big clubs and we play in a style that can compete and win those games. Now, can we compete in those games? Absolutely. Everyone watched our game against Adelaide last week and said that's two pretty good teams going at it. You don't throw the baby out with the bath water and say we're not good enough. We need to refine a couple of things in our game and handle those moments. You look at Collingwood's last month - it's pretty easy to say they've lost three out of four, but they've played pretty good footy. Both teams are in pretty good form without getting the points."
On Box Hill's depth
"Yeah, rapt with that. Zane Littlejohn's doing a really good job. I think that whole program's running really smoothly and the Box Hill development as well. We have a lot of players that are playing really good footy there, I'm really pleased. You want competition for spots and we've always valued that really highly. Having a strong VFL team, we've always valued that really highly at Hawtorn and a lot of our players have come from that process and program so I'm pleased that they're sitting so nicely."
On Will Day
"I'm 100 per cent confident that he'll be back and back consistently. He's a pro and our medical team will work really hard. He'll be on the bench for us tomorrow night, so he's in a pretty good head space. His navicular site, where he had the surgery, looks pretty good. He has some bone stress in some other parts of his foot - it obviously changed the mechanics of his running. It's an issue for us, trying to get him back out and ready for the season ... but he's not back to square one. He's still a fair way through his process of getting back. Daysy is obviously a big loss but if you grabbed any injury list in the competition and looked at ours, you’d probably say we’re pretty pleased with it. Obviously without (Josh) Weddle and Day, they’re clearly in our best side, but I think most teams have one or two of their best side missing at the moment and we’re in that boat. I am pretty pleased with our depth, as just mentioned, with Box Hill and we’ll still have 23 players run out there."
Watch Mitchell's full press conference below
