Hawthorn has GWS as its opposition in the opening match of a season for the first time.

This leaves Gold Coast, Port Adelaide and West Coast as opponents the Hawks have not met in the first match. Other clubs which Hawthorn has not met first-up for a significant period include Western Bulldogs (1962), Richmond (1980) and Carlton (1988).

Who will kick Hawthorn’s first goal of the 2026 AFL season?

Only three current Hawthorn players have achieved the feat - Mitch Lewis (2022), Jack Ginnivan (2024) and Dylan Moore last season. No Hawk has kicked multiple first goals of the season since Michael Osborne, who, quite remarkably, did it for three consecutive seasons from 2008 to 2010.

Could it be Jack Gunston’s year to do it? Thus far, Gunston has played 11 opening games for Hawthorn, but has only once kicked a first-quarter goal, the team’s fourth at the 31-minute mark of the opening term against Collingwood in 2018. He has twice kicked three goals in the first game (in 2016 and 2022), on both occasions booting a goal in each of the last three quarters.

Hawthorn has kicked its first goal of the season in the first quarter of the first game every season for the past 60 years.

The last time the Hawks did not manage to kick a first-quarter goal in the opening game was in Round 1, 1965, when a record Glenferrie crowd of 36,000 saw the Hawks kept, not just goalless, but scoreless in the opening term against Carlton under new captain-coach Ron Barassi. It proved a bad omen as 1965 went on to become the most recent wooden spoon season in Hawthorn history.

With several players changing numbers in 2026, it is worth reflecting on where they ended up in the hierarchy of achievement in their previous numbers.

Having started his Hawthorn career with 30 games in number 36 (the third most in that number), Dylan Moore completed four seasons in number 13 before moving to number 8 for the 2026 season. Remarkably, he played all 96 possible games in those four seasons, which places him third in the games tally for number 13, behind only Leon Rice (133) and Paul Dear (123), while his tally of 102 goals is the record for number 13, ahead of Paul Dear’s 80.

Connor Macdonald finished with 90 games in number 31, the second most in the number behind 1961 Premiership star, Garry Young (108 games). Macdonald also kicked the second most goals in number 31, with 71, with Young again the leader with 164. An interesting sidelight to Macdonald’s 90 games is that he had an even split of 45 wins and 45 defeats.

In just two seasons, Nick Watson played the fourth most games (43) in number 34 and kicked the equal second-most goals (61). Those ahead of him in the games tally are John Kennedy Jnr. (241), Mark Graham (223) and Brent Renouf (52), while Kennedy also has the most goals in number 34 (210), with Graham sharing Watson’s tally.

Calsher Dear played the seventh most games in number 35, but kicked the second most goals, with the leader in both tallies being triple-Premiership player James Morrissey, who played 106 games and booted exactly 100 goals in the number.

Sam Mitchell is joining elite company in coaching Hawthorn in a fifth consecutive season. The only others to have done so were Jack Hale, John Kennedy Snr., Allan Jeans, Peter Schwab and Alastair Clarkson.

Hawthorn narrowly leads the head-to-head against GWS with nine wins, eight defeats and one draw from 18 games, since the Giants entered the competition in 2012.

In last season’s Elimination Final, Hawthorn recorded its first win at Engie Stadium after suffering eight previous defeats, six against the Giants, plus losses to Collingwood and Melbourne in Covid-era games in 2020.

This is the ninth occasion when Hawthorn has begun a season outside Victoria, having a 4-4 record across the eight previous occasions, including victories in the most recent three, in Launceston (2014), Adelaide (2019) and Sydney last season.

Hawthorn’s first opening day victory outside Victoria was 20 years ago, in Round 1 2006, when Hawthorn defeated Fremantle by 22 points in Launceston – 17.7.109 to 13.9.87. The decisive quarter was the third when the Hawks added 9.2 to 3.1 to turn a five-point half-time lead into a 42-point margin at the final change. Mark Williams (8 goals) and Sam Mitchell (35 disposals) both received nine Coaches’ Votes.

Hawthorn had two new players in Round 1, 2006 – Brent Guerra and Grant Birchall. Guerra had already played AFL football for Port Adelaide and St Kilda, but he came into his own in the Hawthorn backline, playing 159 games, including the 2008 and 2013 Flag-winning teams. Birchall played 248 games in 14 seasons for the Hawks and was a member of four Premiership teams.

2026 is the third occasion on which Hawthorn has started a VFL/AFL season with a game which does not form part of Round 1.

As well as Opening Round last season, the other occasion was in 1985, when the League brought forward the Grand Final rematch between Hawthorn and Essendon from Round 3 to be played a week before Round 1.

This year will be Hawthorn’s equal-earliest start to a VFL/AFL season, with 7 March being the same date on which the Hawks played Sydney last season. This was six days earlier than the previous record, Monday, 13 March 2000, when the season was brought forward due to the Sydney Olympics taking place in the second half of September.

However, it is also worth remembering that in the days of the pre-season competition, Hawthorn played competitive games as early as 30 January in 2000, and on 6 February as far back as 1991.

Jarryd Roughead holds the Hawks’ individual goals record against GWS, kicking six in 2012 at the MCG.