It’s feasible that by Wednesday night, star forward Luke Breust would’ve gone from a senior Hawthorn player to the father figure of the club’s list in the space of just over one month.
For the Hawks have cut hard this off-season – to the point where some would argue they’ve cut too hard.
Hawthorn will be one of several key clubs on AFL trade deadline day, with two star midfielders strong chances of joining rival clubs.
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Collingwood could land contracted Brownlow Medallist Tom Mitchell in exchange for Pick 27 (which came from Melbourne for Brodie Grundy), while fellow on-baller Jaeger O’Meara is reportedly weighing up whether to join the Giants or Dockers, who’ve both shown interest in him.
While there’s ample still to play out at the trade table ahead of the 7.30pm (AEDT) deadline, it’s possible that six of the Hawks’ 10 most experienced players in 2022 won’t be on the list next season.
Should Mitchell (29 years old) and O’Meara (28) depart on Wednesday, they’d join retired duo Ben McEvoy (33) and Liam Shiels (31), new Lion Jack Gunston (30) and delisted defender Kyle Hartigan (30) on the Hawks’ departures list. That’s 1181 games of experience out the door.
That would leave 31-year-old Breust – a dual All-Australian and triple premiership player with 239 games – as clearly Hawthorn’s most experienced player at 260 games and the sole player left from the Hawks’ 2015 flag team.
Unlike Collingwood in 2020, this isn’t a ‘fire sale’ due to a drastic salary cap squeeze at Hawthorn. Rather, as five-time premiership Hawk Dermott Brereton pointed out on Fox Footy’s Trading Day, this is a deliberate ploy to help accelerate the club’s rebuild.
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In the years after the 2015 premiership, the Hawks topped up at the trade and free agency table, acquiring Mitchell, O’Meara, Ty Vickery, Jarman Impey, Jack Scrimshaw, Tom Scully, Chad Wingard, Sam Frost and Jon Patton from rival clubs. There was a spike in 2018 as the club finished inside the top four but ultimately was eliminated in the finals in straight sets.
Since 2018, the Hawks have finished ninth, 15th, 14th and, most recently, 13th. Although you sense ladder and win-loss ratio growth might be hard in 2023.
Brereton suggested such a significant chasm in experience means Hawks fans might have to temper expectations in 2023.
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“They won eight games this year, I think six would be a good result for them next year,” Brereton told Trading Day.
“This is a complete reset to win a premiership. This is not about being competitive for the now – you’d want to do that anyway – this is about the draft.”
The Hawks have attacked the draft hard in the past three years with seven selections under Pick 30, including first-round draftees Will Day, Denver Grainger-Barras and Josh Ward. They’ve also had some big wins at the mid-season draft, selecting Box Hill products Jai Newcombe last year then James Blanck this year.
As it stands, Hawthorn holds Picks 6, 24, 48, 52 and 65 in this year’s draft. They could add Pick 27 from Collingwood for Tom Mitchell and Pick 21 from Fremantle for O’Meara by the end of the day. Those three picks in the 20s would put the Hawks in an excellent position to trade up the draft order and take another top Under 18 prospect on top of the player they’d select at Pick 6.
The Hawks this year ranked 16th for contested possession differential and 18th for clearance differential, so midfielders would surely be a focus for them at the draft. Those numbers, on the surface, would make the likely departures of Tom Mitchell and O’Meara even more puzzling, but the fact Sam Mitchell didn’t put them in the majority of centre bounces at the start of the season suggests the duo might’ve seen the writing on the wall.
“If you look at that (draft hand) you say ‘that’s not extraordinary’. But in the last two pre-season drafts, they’ve got two lock-away players in the spine of their team: Jai Newcombe and James Blanck,” Brereton said.
“I think they’ll say: ‘Yep, if we can find another two or three from these specie picks, you’ve got 6, put that in on top of (Josh) Ward from last year’ … This is one where Sam has gone ‘this is how you put together a premiership’.”
There’s a danger in a club gutting its list so hard as it could backfire and ultimately prolong a rebuild.
Asked if Hawthorn had cut too hard, Brereton said: “There’s always that risk. What Sam and Hawthorn have done is put in enormous stock in the likes of Mitch Lewis, Blanck, Denver Grainger-Barras – they’re big kids, they’ve got a big spine now. But we saw someone like Tom Lynch get hold of their entire backline in that game. They look like babies against those.
“It’s a risk, but you’ve got to risk and reward in this caper.”
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There were encouraging signs of growth under new coach Sam Mitchell in 2022, with the club finishing 13th on the ladder with an 8-14 record.
Rather than having a pure defensive focus with his side, Mitchell encouraged the Hawks to play with freedom and speed. That led to the team averaging 81.2 points per game – ranked 11th in the competition – while also ranking third for ball movement, fifth for points from defensive half and sixth for scores per inside 50.
Ex-Hawk Ben Dixon was optimistic about his former club’s outlook.
“They overachieved this year in terms of the way they played, so I think Hawthorn supporters should be pleasantly surprised,” he told Trading Day.
“The next three years, they’re going to be at the bottom, then they’re going to climb and it’s going to take draft picks.”
