Hawthorn AFL Senior Coach Sam Mitchell is embracing the Preliminary Final occasion as his side prepares to do battle with Geelong under Friday night lights at the MCG. 

Speaking to the media on Wednesday morning, the Hawks coach discussed the Geelong rivalry and the team’s depth, while also opening up on the heartbreak of Luke Breust’s season-ending injury. 

We summarised the key points from his press conference below. 

On the Geelong rivalry 

“They’re a good side. They’ve been going pretty smoothly for a long period of time and obviously, they’ve had a good run into the finals. They’ve been sitting and waiting for us for an extra week. We’ve got a lot of Hawks fans among our players, probably 10 of them grew up as Hawks fans. This weekend is a great weekend for footy, it’s a great weekend to be in Victoria, and both games being in Melbourne, and we’re really excited to be a part of it. We're ready for whatever comes. We've come this far playing a certain way, so we're not going to change it now."

On Luke Breust’s injury 

"He's such an amazing person - his attitude to doing his knee in a game like that, there are a lot of different ways you can look at it. He was saying, 'Well, the game doesn't owe me anything, and of all the games to do it, it's probably getting closer to the end, I'd rather do it then. Is this the way he'd hope it would finish? Of course not."

On the team’s depth

“We would hope we don’t rely on too many individuals, or any. If we can play collectively to our best, I think that’s been one of the things we’ve done reasonably well, you know, come Monday night when they do the Brownlow count, I don’t imagine we’ll be right at the top for total votes, and we’re probably not going to have a standout player. I think we’ll probably be reasonably even across the group, and that’s been a strength of what we’ve produced this year so far.” 

Watch Mitchell’s full press conference below