SAM MITCHELL played in six preliminary finals during his time at the coalface of Hawthorn's engine room, but now the 43-year-old gets a second chance to progress to a Grand Final as the coach of the Hawks. 

On the same stage last year, Hawthorn led Geelong until time-on in the second quarter, before the Cats kicked six unanswered goals either side of half-time to kill the contest at the MCG. 

That is as close as Hawthorn has come to reaching a Grand Final since it completed the three-peat under Alastair Clarkson in 2015. 

After two finals in 2024 and three last year, Mitchell hopes those experiences will help against Brisbane at the MCG on Saturday, which took time to perform consistently in September under Chris Fagan before becoming a juggernaut.

"History would say that you have to lose some games to be a bit more battle hardened," Mitchell told reporters at the Kennedy Community Centre on Thursday morning. 

"Brisbane have been there consistently over the last few years and in Grand Finals as well, but before that they had some losses.

"We've been through that period, but there's small margins in a lot of these games. We got to this point last year and we know that we need to consistently be able to compete against the best sides in the competition. We get a chance on Saturday afternoon to see if we are."

Brisbane smashed Hawthorn by 67 points at the Gabba only five weeks ago in one of the Lions' most convincing performances of 2026 to date. For Mitchell, it provided a timely audit he didn't want, but knows could prove critical by the end of this campaign. 

"I mean that was a good wake up call for us that we were we were nowhere near good enough. I think we finished that game with some mirror looking and saying, 'OK, what do we need to do as a collective? What do we need to do individually to make sure that we're ready to compete against this level of intensity, which they brought that night, which we weren't up to'," Mitchell said.

"I said after that game that I doubt if we played them again it would be the same. We'll see if that's true now. I'd like to think you don't need those games, but certainly I think you're forever fighting your own standards about what you'll accept and what you stand for and who you want to be as an organisation.

"That was a wake up call for what we've had accepted up to that point. And sometimes little things slip that you might not notice until they punch you in the face. And that night, that's exactly what happened."

Co-captain Jai Newcombe has been the No.1 rated player on the ground in four of his first six finals, according to Champion Data, but the return of Will Day has provided another element to Hawthorn’s midfield. 

Reigning Merrett-Murray Medallist Josh Dunkley is expected to go to one of them after nullifying Izak Rankine at the Gabba in the semi-final win over Adelaide. Mitchell expects it to be Newcombe. 

"Yeah, I suspect him going to go to Jai," he said. "'Dunks' has been amazing for a long time, and I'm glad he gets some credit from the outside world because he's certainly a player who, when you watch as a coach, love what he does and you imagine that they would. But I watch it and I don't like it that much. But I mean he plays a fantastic team role for them and he's a very important player for them, so I suspect he'll go to Jai."

Dylan Moore has become a star under Mitchell's watch after being delisted and then added to the rookie list during the COVID-19 pandemic after famously saving his career at Hawthorn in front of just over 2000 people at Adelaide Oval in 2020. 

Now the All-Australian plays game No.150 on Saturday night after overcoming a challenging off-season due to an arrest in the United States to fire again in 2026.

"'Moorey' has been fantastic for me on a personal level for such a long time. I remember when I first got to the club in a coaching role, he was the guy that was always first here, last to leave. And perhaps it wasn't always like that with everyone; he was the one that drove a lot of that standards of the younger players in his first couple of years," he said.

"Obviously he went through some tough periods with nearly getting delisted and sort of basically his last game was the one that kept him on the list. He's been a fantastic player for this club for a long time and just so consistently hard working. 

"He has had his challenges over the last six-to-nine months and how he's grown through that and put his hand up and said, 'I got this wrong, I need to earn back some respect'. For him, I think he feels like he still is. But for us, he won that back with the way he went about it very, very quickly. I'm rapt to see him reach 150 and there will be plenty more after this."

Watch Mitchell's full press conference below