Hawthorn Coach Sam Mitchell was pleased with his side's efforts in their 64-point win over Collingwood at the MCG on Thursday night, particularly his tall forwards who kicked nine of the team's 17 goals.

It's the second week in a row Hawthorn has run with the four talls in Mabior Chol, Calsher Dear, Mitch Lewis and Jack Gunston, with Mitchell believing that this week they performed much better as a unit.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO SAM MITCHELL ON SEN BREAKFAST 

"The way our forwards operated I thought was really in sync," he said post-game to the media.

"They're probably more prone this week to flying together, which I thought was better. Last week they probably were trying to be a bit too respectful of each other.

"So this week I thought our contest in front of the ball was significant and we were able to put more pressure on them, which we knew would be important from the last time we played them."

Mitchell also praised Jai Newcombe, who bounced back from a heavy collision with Jeremy Howe in the first two minutes to finish the game as one of his side's best players.

"I think Jai's leadership can't be understated. I think he has that massive moment early in the game which sets the tone for us and again, I just want to reiterate that thoughts go out to Jeremy Howe and his family, making sure that he's, you know, hope he's fine," Mitchell said. 

"But then, you know, 'Newc' goes through his HIA, he passes his test and he comes back on. It wasn't too much longer later, there was a sky ball right in front of the bench that he just took a contested mark and it was like one of those genuine, easy to get out of the contest if you want to and he just stood under it and he marked it.

"It was like, 'Man, this is a guy you want to play fully with' and I think all of our players, you know, walk pretty tall when 'Newc' is running out there next to them."

Hawthorn sits in fifth position on the ladder with two games remaining. For Mitchell, he knows its season is on the line.

"We're playing for our season right now, aren't we? So, our focus is as great as the game was and as exciting as that was, we haven't qualified for finals. We need to continue to win," he said.

"We play another game next week that we're going to have to put another side away and we understand the position. We've made it a little bit hard for ourselves.

"For a lot of the year, we've been a bit higher on the ladder than where we are right now and we've run out of chances pretty much. So, we know we're going to have to play our best footy from here on in and tonight was much closer to that."

Watch Sam Mitchell's full press conference below