2025 AFL Season Previews: Hawthorn
They put on their robes and wizard hats.
I kick off the second half of my previews by considering the Hawks.
2024 ladder position: 7th (14 wins, 9 losses – eliminated at Semi Final stage)
2024 best-and-fairest: Jai Newcombe
Senior coach: Sam Mitchell
Story of the season
Bloody hell, that was impressive. Sam Mitchell’s Hawks rebounded from a fairly disastrous 0-5 start (which, in truth, was always misleading – they should have won a couple of those games) to win 14 of their last 18 games and careen into September with the momentum of a runaway freight train. If the season had started at Round 6, they would have finished a game clear as minor Premiers. Hawthorn’s rapid rise up the ladder was underwritten by two things: a game plan which regularly outwitted their opponents, and a brash young group that rode the bumps with a grin. Seventh was a false final ladder position. There weren’t six teams better than the Hawks in the finals’ series. They dismantled the Dogs in a memorable Elimination Final and, if Port hadn’t stopped them in an impossibly dramatic and tempestuous semi final, I’m not sure anyone would have. The recruitment of Tom Barrass and Josh Battle to fortify an already solid defence propelled supporters’ spirits into the upper atmosphere. After a brief hiatus – not brief enough for rival clubs – it appears the good times are well and truly back at Hawthorn.
Summary of game style
Although they only converted promising stats to wins in 2024, Hawthorn were already prominent in several key indicators of modern footy before last season. In 2023, they were first for disposal differential (the gap between their own disposals and their opponents’), first for loose ball gets differential, and fourth for ground ball gets differential. Where the Hawks struggled was forcing turnovers. Once the ball was in dispute, they did well. The problem was creating enough of those disputed situations in the first place.
What enabled the Hawks to go to the next level was Sam Mitchell building on top of already-solid foundations. I want to begin on the defensive side, because I think that the way Hawthorn defended with their high half-forwards is the key to understanding what made them such a formidable proposition for opposition coaches and teams. Here’s how I saw it. Hawthorn, like every side, flooded the corridor to deny space in that central zone. Where they departed from standard practice was in instructing their half-forwards (Dylan Moore, Connor Macdonald, et al) to push up the ground while staying quite wide. That enabled them to prevent opposition handball receives on the boundary side of the mark, denying a very typical set-play where a winger or half-back will gain territory by overlapping on the boundary side and kicking it long. That, together with a solid defensive zone, forced Hawthorn’s opponents to funnel the ball into contested situations in central areas. From there, the Hawks were able to create kill zones, using their numbers and superiority at ground level to force turnovers and spread rapidly (and, because those turnovers occurred closer to the middle of the ground than the wing, that spread was much harder to stop). This, you’ll notice, is in contrast to more conventional defensive schemes, where forcing the opposition to keep the ball wide is regarded as a good outcome. Forcing your opponent wide is defensively good – but it means that, when you win the ball, you’re starting your own possession chain in an area of the field where it’s much harder to score from.
That innovation brings me onto the second layer Mitchell introduced: speed with ball in hand. This chart, created by James Ives (who at this rate will soon deserve a co-writing credit) tells the story.
Hawthorn’s high half-forwards are key to this process as well. By holding their width rather than being sucked closer to the ball, they allowed the Hawks to circumvent opposition corridor defensive schemes. And on offensive transition, they presented as dangerous link options ahead of the ball. Hawthorn moved the ball quickly, but also elaborately. Only three sides (Essendon, Fremantle, and St Kilda – barely, in the case of the latter) used more disposals in their possession chains. But all those sides moved the ball much more slowly than the Hawks. That willingness to add more links to their attacking chains enabled Hawthorn to regularly fashion high-quality scoring opportunities (they ranked sixth in expected score per shot in 2024).
Everyone, understandably, talks about the half-forwards. But I think there was another, much less commonly discussed tactical (and list-building) innovation that helped make it all work: Hawthorn’s use of hybrid-sized defenders that excelled at both aerial and ground-level contests. Every single player who filled what could be described as a key defensive post met that definition: captain James Sicily, Jack Scrimshaw, Sam Frost, Josh Weddle, Ethan Phillips, Jai Serong. Even the two new defensive recruits, Tom Barrass and Josh Battle, do. Almost all of them are more like a typical third-tall size. Even Barrass, who aside from James Blanck is the closest Hawthorn have to a true key defender on their list, is more comfortable intercepting. But Mitchell is happy to concede a few centimetres of height because he understood the benefits of having an ultra-mobile defensive unit which excelled at intercepting and contributed on offensive transition.
List changes
In:
Noah Mraz (2024 National Draft, pick #35)
Cody Anderson (2024 National Draft, pick #64 – Next Generation Academy)
Tom Barrass (trade – West Coast)
Josh Battle (free agent – St Kilda)
Matt Hill (Category B Rookie)
Jaime Uhr-Henry (Category B rookie)
Out:
Josh Bennetts (delisted)
Denver Grainger-Barras (delisted)
Cooper Stephens (delisted)
Jack O'Sullivan (delisted)
Ethan Phillips (delisted)
Clay Tucker (delisted)
Chad Wingard (retired)
List profile
Number of top-10 draft picks: four (T-16th)
Average age at Opening Round: 24.6 (10th)
Average number of games played: 71.7 (8th)
This time last year, although perceptive analysts and the occasional pundit could see that Mitchell was cooking up something interesting, most people thought Hawthorn’s list wasn’t sufficiently good to take them far. How quickly things change.
Barrass and Battle should add more steel to a backline that, for all its merits, still had room for improvement when the ball actually came in (the Hawks were ninth for opposition scoring shots per inside-50 entry). Although many people think this will provide Mitchell with the freedom to throw Sicily forward, I see it another way: Barrass will probably replace Frost (effectively assuming the role of main key defender), while I see Battle releasing Josh Weddle further up the field, perhaps to a wing role, where his size and athleticism will force awkward match-ups in Hawthorn’s attacking 50. Impey and Amon offer good-quality rebound.
The midfield is probably a touch short of the class of the absolute best units in the competition, but not by much. Again, it’s the versatility (and the quality of drafting) that stands out. James Worpel and Jai Newcombe are the closest to mainstays at centre bounce. Adding goals to his game elevated the latter to the upper echelon of midfielders in the AFL. Conor Nash is an excellent wrecking ball, irritating and nullifying opposition attacking midfielders. One of my most sacrilegious footy opinions is that, despite his obvious class, I think Will Day’s reputation is still ever so slightly out of proportion with his actual output. There is still scope for him to elevate his game (and Hawthorn’s midfield) to the next level. One final remark: I think it’s generally underappreciated how much replacing Ned Reeves with Lloyd Meek as the first-choice ruck improved the Hawks last season.
The forward line is a fascinating prospect because it’s yet another example of Mitchell departing from conventional wisdom. Mabior Chol, first-year Calsher Dear, a clapped-out Jack Gunston and the talented but injury-prone Mitch Lewis is not a set of talls that, prior to last season, would have struck much fear into the hearts of opposition key defenders. Hawthorn haven’t invested much trade or draft capital into this area. Frankly, I think it’s because Mitchell doesn’t think that spending much on a role that can be easily negated is a worthwhile use of draft capital. He views tall forwards as means to an end: their job is to bring the ball to ground, so Hawthorn’s smalls and mediums can go to work. The other advantage is that it poses difficult problems for offensive backlines that are typically built around key position defenders as centrepieces, with half-backs and even back pockets increasingly selected for their attacking skills instead of their defensive discipline. I’ve already spoken about the importance of Dylan Moore and Connor Macdonald. Nick Watson will be the best pure small forward in the AFL soon, possibly as soon as this season. And, although it’ll almost certainly be his final year, Luke Breust still has lots of tricks up his sleeve.
Line rankings
Defence: Elite
Midfield: Above Average
Forward: Above Average
Ruck: Above Average
The case for optimism
To open the corresponding section of last year’s preview, I wrote that, although I didn’t expect Hawthorn to play finals in 2024, the club was making decisions that would enable them to play a lot of finals from 2026 onwards. Half-right! They will play a lot of finals from 2026 onwards. Partly because a young and talented group already has two of them under their collective belts. I also wrote, more accurately, that the real legacy of 2023 was the emergence of the club’s next generation of leaders and top performers – Day, Newcombe, Moore. Well, you can add a few more names to that list based on their performances in 2024: Josh Weddle, the ultra-athletic utility. Connor Macdonald, the clever half-forward. Nick Watson, the lightning-fast small. Massimo D’Ambrosio, the slick winger. It’s often said that good systems elevate players above their true level. It’s usually intended as a backhanded compliment – kudos to the coach, boo to the players. I have never understood this! Players who consistently play well are good players, irrespective of their draft picks or how expensive they are to buy in a fantasy player auction. Mitchell has taken a group of players who the rest of the competition, and many outside observers, misjudged, and turned them into an extremely effective collective.
Many people mistake saying “oh, so many young teams drop back down the ladder after a breakout year” with actual analysis. For it to count as analysis, you need to actually identify the causal mechanism by which it’ll happen. Otherwise it’s just cope/hope. I’m old enough to remember when, at the outset of the 2023 season, talking heads and dedicated amateur Collingwood haters predicted that the Pies would slide right back down the ladder. Flash in the pan! Unsustainable! Collingwood won the Premiership, and not a single Pies fan cares that it required a lot of luck. But honestly, although there is the same desire from opposition fans to see them fail, and the same effort by opposition analysts to work them out, this Hawthorn side feels different to that Collingwood Premiership side. You see games where one team is overwhelmed by superior opposition talent all the time. There’s at least one of them every round. I don’t remember the last time so many sides looked visibly confused at how to play against an opponent as I did when sides came up against Hawthorn in the back half of last season. The Crows looked flummoxed. The Blues, clueless. The Bulldogs – statistically perhaps the best side of last season, in a home Elimination Final – frustrated and overwhelmed. Hawthorn weren’t pulling increasingly surreal come-from-behind wins out of their arses. They were smashing teams. Yes, the competition might find an answer. But the onus is on them to do so. Sam Mitchell’s task – to implement the next version of his game plan – feels simpler. In the space of one season, the footy world has gone from discussing Hawthorn as a promising but callow side to treating them as one of the best teams in it. That’s because they are.
The case for pessimism
I’ve poked and prodded at this, searching for the weaknesses. Did the Hawks’ goal-scoring, or anything else in their statistical profile jump out as unsustainable? No. Am I sceptical of Sam Mitchell’s tactical acumen? No. Do they lack the top-end talent needed to tip the balance in the biggest games? See, I used to think this would be the Hawks’ biggest hurdle. I didn’t think they’d spent enough time down the bottom to accumulate the elite talent that’s the sine qua non of winning Premierships. Now, I’m not so sure. Newcombe, Day, Sicily, Watson, Moore, Weddle, Barrass, Battle, Dear, D’Ambrosio… perhaps one could quibble just how many of these are the A++ players that dominate talkback radio discussions. But you don’t need to have a top-five player in the competition side to win flags. It helps. But what matters more is a talented, cohesive list compounded by a game plan that accentuates its strengths. Footy is too tactically dense these days for Premierships to be won by Roy-of-the-Rovers style performances from individual players, even if their surnames are Cripps or Bontempelli. All of which is to say, I don’t think a lack of sufficiently good players will be an impediment to Hawthorn’s ambitions.
To explain my cause for (slight) pessimism for the Hawks in 2025, I’ll return to the Collingwood analogy. As I wrote in my preview, there were several reasons why the Pies couldn’t back up their flag success last year. But the one that’s most relevant to Hawthorn is that the tactical advantage which they enjoyed for the first two years of Craig McRae’s tenure was erased by the elite competitive standards of the modern AFL. Teams responded to the way the Pies engineered turnovers in high-value parts of the ground by adopting a slower, more methodical style. And umpires got wise to the way the Pies would kill games late by creating countless, clock-sapping stoppages.
There’s no guarantee that’ll happen to the Hawks. Beyond a couple of semi-educated guesses, like teams avoiding Mitchell’s turnover traps and moving upfield by creating overloads in wide positions, or – as Port and Geelong did – dialling the speed and directness of their ball movement up to 10, I wouldn’t really know what to do. But I’d wager that analysing and counteracting Hawthorn’s style would have occupied the minds of many bright opposition coaches and analysts. One of my favourite things about the AFL is that, unlike soccer, it’s still small enough and financially competitive enough that you can see small groups of people wrestling with how to solve tactical problems (and create them for other sides) in near-real time. There’s always going to be a lag in countering unique styles because the season passes by in such a blur. There’s almost no time between games in the Home & Away season to do anything other than recover, review, and make small adjustments for the next opponent. Deep thinking happens in the background, and is only collected and applied in the quiet months of summer and late spring. The Hawks didn’t win the flag. But make no mistake – in 2025, they will be the hunted.
Actually, I’m going to add one more (petty and gratuitous) cause for pessimism. Well, it’s more of a pet peeve. The “Wizard” stuff for Nick Watson, with the pointy hats and the wands. Come on. I don’t even mind the rest of Hawthorn’s social media stuff! But we can’t be taking cues from AFL house journos about player nicknames – it’s too cringe and manufactured. Besides, there’s already been a small forward whose nickname was The Wizard.
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Breakout player
They’ve made this hard. They all bloody broke out last season. Now who am I supposed to nominate? I’ll cheat a little and pretend that Calsher Dear didn’t, so that I can say him. I’m not sure anyone expected a skinny key forward taken at Pick 56 in the 2023 draft (admittedly, as a father-son, so perhaps slightly below his “true” position) to have such an impact in his first year. The most impressive part of Dear’s game was also the simplest – his preternatural ability to bring the ball to ground and, in doing so, facilitate for his smaller forward line colleagues. As he adds more layers to his attacking game, he will only get better. His absence for the opening weeks of the season with back stress fractures will hamper the Hawks. If Dear’s season is ultimately ruined by that injury, then Nick Watson is a safe second choice.
Most important player
It’s a great credit to Hawthorn’s list build and Sam Mitchell’s system that this is a tougher question to answer than it is for many other sides. But it’s got to be James Sicily, doesn’t it? He’s a great player who’s loved by his teammates. I break from the semi-conventional wisdom that seems to have decided, since the recruitment of Tom Barrass and Josh Battle, that Sicily should be swung forward (although, judging by his own comments, he will be, at least sometimes). Although his forays forward can confuse the opposition – as it did Fremantle in Launceston – I think the captain’s ability to instigate attacks from deep defensive positions is just too important.
Biggest question to answer
How will a relatively inexperienced side, led by a relatively inexperienced coach, adapt to heightened external expectations and increased opposition scrutiny? Footy history is littered with sides that caught the competition by surprise (sometimes to the extent of winning the flag) and then had no response when a successful counter was developed to the game plan which delivered them initial success. Undue expectation can lead to disappointment.
What success looks like
Based on the second half of last season, this Hawthorn side is at least the equal of Brisbane, Sydney, and the Western Bulldogs. What do those sides aim for, and their supporters dream of, when the season starts? Lifting the cup on that last Saturday of September. Why not these impetuous Hawks?
In a nutshell
Hawthorn ambushed the AFL with an innovative style executed by fearless youngsters and wily veterans. They are stronger. But so is the desire of the rest of the competition to take them down.
Agree? Think I’m a fool who’s biased against the Hawks? Share your thoughts in the comments.
Great analysis 👍🏾 I’m optimistic about the hawks this year but I am a little concerned about the key forward stocks until either Dear or Lewis is fit.