Hawthorn Senior Coach Sam Mitchell addressed the media on Thursday morning, speaking about last weekend’s disappointing performance against Melbourne and how his side plans to bounce back against the Blues this Saturday night. 

Mitchell also confirmed that Nick Watson (hamstring) has been ruled out for a second week and will aim to return in Round 19.

We summarised the key points from his press conference below. 

On the game last week 

“We had a good look at it. As Moorey would say, it wasn't an elephant under the carpet moment, so we certainly had a look at it and looked at what happened and why, and when you give behaviours like that, you get performances like that. So we had a quick look at some of the detail, but we also had an in-depth look at the ripple effect of not getting a job done.”

On Nick Watson 

“On Tuesday he ran 88 per cent of his top speed, which is still faster than most of us. But just from a confidence point of view, we don't feel like it's worth the risk with him - so he'll miss one more, and he'll be available for next week.”

On Conor Nash

“It's pretty complicated ... it's quite unusual, so we've had to go to some experts - he went to Sydney through the week and got some further treatment. Now, he definitely won't play for a month ... but we have no timeline, so realistically he could miss the rest of this season. He's very frustrated. The worst-case scenario is he misses the rest of this season."

On Carlton 

“They're playing very good footy, and they've made some changes to their game style, and they're still very good in the contest. They've been like that for a long time, but they've probably added a fair bit of ball control, and their ball movement is pretty slick as well. They're ranked in the top couple for defensive 50 to forward 50 transition now, and they're doing it in a slightly different way to what they did a couple of months ago, but they're obviously in great form and Saturday night at the MCG, what better way to try and bring them back down because they've been going pretty well.” 

On the depth of the squad 

“I think obviously Noah Mraz has been spoken about pretty highly by everyone, and taking seven intercept marks and having a strong performance in his first game was fantastic. But I think Matty Hill was a real positive as well. I think he came into some centre bounces. Sometimes first-gamers, they look overawed by the experience and all those things, and I thought he looked excellent. Those two guys, I thought, were highlights. We did get some games into some other younger lads, and I think there weren't many positives to come out of last weekend, but obviously a couple of games from some younger guys and getting a couple of debutants was a real positive for us. I think our injury list for the first half of this season has been as good as you could have hoped for, and we've obviously hit some hiccups at this time of year, which challenges the depth, particularly at the back half where we've had quite a few out of that space. But we've got a really good Box Hill program. They had a great win against Tassie on the weekend down in Penguin. So I was wrapped with the guys who did play for Box Hill. We've still got plenty of guys who are pushing for selection. So I think every club is challenged with depth at some stage in their season, and it's our turn at the moment. I would think that as we progress through this next period, we'll hopefully get some players back, but the players we have playing are capable of playing better than we did last week.”

Watch Mitchell’s full press conference below