Hawthorn Senior Coach Sam Mitchell has highlighted the “great opportunity” that awaits his side as it prepares to take on the only remaining undefeated team in the league, the Western Bulldogs. 

Speaking to the media on Thursday morning, Mitchell said the Hawks had already moved on from the highs of Easter Monday’s win over Geelong, with the focus now turning towards backing up that performance under Saturday night lights at Adelaide Oval. 

The Hawks coach detailed his side’s preparations for the game, spoke about the challenge of facing the Dogs and paid homage to the Hawthorn fans ahead of yet another prime-time game for the Club.

We summarised the key points from his press conference below.

On the preparations for Saturday’s game

“The tight turnaround and playing the Dogs probably helps, to be honest. You obviously finish Monday with high emotion, but by the time you get to Tuesday lunchtime, you’re already thinking ahead and pretty heavily motivated. You’re playing the only undefeated team left in the competition plus, Gather Round and Saturday night, it’s a great opportunity for us to test ourselves against the best side in the competition at this point. It’s pretty easy to move on quickly. The only thing is that everyone you run into still wants to talk backwards, and we need to be disciplined, making sure that we’re thinking forwards.” 

On the Bulldogs 

“They’re doing a lot right. They’re a little bit unpredictable at the moment as well, just with, obviously, a couple of changes, with (Tim) English going out. So we’re not exactly sure how they’ll line up, but I mean, their stoppage game is first class and has been for a long period of time there. Their marking power is first rate across the ground and, you know, they’ve got a couple of unlikely stats. They’re double anyone else’s score from kick-ins, for example. So there’s a fair bit of preparation that goes into a game that’s against as high-quality a team as the Bulldogs. So they’re on top of the ladder for a reason. They’ve played Adelaide away and they beat Brisbane away, so they’ve had some big games that they’ve been able to win. We know we’re going to have to be at our best.”

On the Hawthorn fans

“We want to put bums on seats and Hawthorn people are turning out. I think last week, it was the third biggest home crowd we’ve ever had in a home-and-away game. So we look at that, and we’re saying, ‘Okay, we’re bringing Hawthorn people to the game.’ I’m sure there’ll be a heap of Hawthorn people heading over to Adelaide, and let’s make sure we outnumber the Dogs.” 

Watch Mitchell’s full press conference below