Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell says he did not deliberately snub former mentor Alastair Clarkson in his Australian Football Hall of Fame acceptance speech.
After he was honoured at the annual dinner on Tuesday night, Mitchell did not mention the four-time Hawthorn premiership coach as he thanked his family, former teammates and staff.
On Friday, he told reporters Clarkson and his other coaches had helped him “enormously” over his career, and he had tried to avoid singling out individuals at the ceremony.
It comes after the relationship between the legendary Hawthorn pair appeared strained earlier this season, with reports Clarkson does not wish to return from his hiatus as North Melbourne senior coach until after the Kangaroos play Hawthorn to avoid a reunion with Mitchell and his former side.
“No (it was not a conscious decision), I was surprised that came up actually,” Mitchell said when asked about his speech.
“I think my coaches in general … there’s so many people that helped you achieve things, and whether it’s the first coach you had as an under-10s kid or the coach you had for 14 years, I think all of those people help you enormously.
“I tried not to get too individual in my speech at all, and I was surprised it got picked up.”
Mitchell, who played in four premierships across 329 games and was retrospectively awarded the joint 2012 Brownlow Medal, said it was “daunting” to join the ranks of footballing greats on Tuesday.
“You walked in there and there’s so many familiar faces you grew up admiring, and then to join them was daunting,” he said.
“It was a bit embarrassing really, it sort of felt like it went for a while and I’m happy that it’s over now.”
He said providing a stronger contest forward of the ball was a key focus for the Hawks in their intriguing clash against Carlton on Sunday, with Jacob Koschitzke omitted only a fortnight after he booted three crucial goals in the upset win over Brisbane.
“I had a really good chat with Kosi … his competing has been pretty good but he just hasn’t been able to quite duke them and hit the scoreboard as consistently as we’d like,” Mitchell said.
“He kicked three against Brisbane a couple of weeks ago but he’s just struggled to hit the scoreboard consistently … what we need from our key forwards is that capacity to hit the scoreboard on a regular basis.
“I think as a team we’re trying to find different ways to score – we really struggled with it last week, so we thought the mix had to look a little bit different going into the Blues game.”
Mature age recruit Fergus Greene is likely to return to the side in the vacant key forward role, while Mitchell confirmed Changkuoth Jiath would play in the VFL on reduced minutes after overcoming a calf injury.
The Hawks coach did not rule out deploying gun midfielder Will Day in defence for a second week, as he plans to counter Carlton twin towers Harry McKay and Charlie Curnow without star interceptor James Sicily.
