Full Sweat: Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell delivers brutal pre-season warning to his players
The Hawks have bared all over summer, with the secret weapon behind their mosquito fleet revealed and Tom Barrass’ admission - but Sam Mitchell steals the show, writes Glenn McFarlane.
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Sam Mitchell has never cared about what people have thought about him … and he’s not about to start now.
In agreeing to allow the Hawks to be followed by Channel 7’s cameras throughout the pre-season, he knew the exposure on the club would be heightened.
The Hawthorn coach told his players on the Full Sweat documentary: “While this is a time when the world’s interested in us, where would you rather be? This is going to be the environment we want to create all the time.”
He urged them to find the balance between the “rage” required and the “joy” needed to play the game.
He wants the group to embrace that attention without being weighed down by the external expectations that have come with making a shock semi-final appearance last season.
On external expectations, Mitchell said: “I don’t know why we would think about that or care or consider that, when the reality is the first few years of my coaching career, we have actively ignored what they (the outside world) have said (about Hawthorn).”
“(They said) … ‘bottom-four team’, ‘they’re tanking’, ‘they’ve destroyed their list’. We didn’t listen to them. If we didn’t listen … when it was bad; we shouldn’t listen when it is good’.”
In the documentary, there were no trade secrets that rival clubs could use to their advantage.
But there were glimpses into the modern world of AFL football where the coach and the team leaders care, teach, instruct, educate, and yes, occasionally, yell at the players.
Pulling back the curtain on a club isn’t a sign of weakness; it can show the strengths of a good club that not only tries to improve its players as footballers, but also as young men.
BODY LANGUAGE COUNTS
“You can be tired, you can’t look tired.”
A relentless Mitchell warned his Hawthorn players during a recent match simulation that if they displayed “tired” body language, it would cost them a spot in the side this season.
Vision showed Mitchell pause one session to make his point to the coaches, as well as detail his frustrations to the players in a later meeting.
“If they look tired, we’ll play with 16 (players) … get the f— off,” a terse Mitchell told his coaches as part of the preparations heightened for Friday night’s season-opener against Sydney at the SCG.
“The technical, tactical (side) I will leave to you (coaches), the thing I am not liking is the body language (of the players). As soon as they go ‘I’m tired’, they need to go ‘imagine what the other side is feeling’. I don’t want us looking tired.”
Mitchell later explained his edict to the players as he showed vision of the session.
“If you are not on the screen, just watch anyone,” he said. “That team (with tired body language) loses every f—ing game, I promise you … every game you play.”
Old school? Yes. But, as the coach said, standards matter.
‘HICK’ MIGHT BE THE MOSQUITO FORWARDS’ SECRET WEAPON
Every club needs an Adrian Hickmott … someone to challenge the status quo but also to drag a disparate group of individuals into a united force.
Mitchell has no doubt his forwards coach and mindfulness devotee Adrian Hickmott has done precisely that with a group that includes strong personalities Jack Ginnivan, Nick Watson, Dylan Moore, Connor Macdonald and veterans Jack Gunston and Luke Breust.
Full Sweat clearly indicates the importance of “Hick”, as Mitchell calls him, in turning what was once a low-scoring forward line into a powerful threat.
“Eighteen months ago we were really struggling to score … we had a good offensive system but we just couldn’t find ways to actually put the score on the board,” Mitchell said in the documentary.
“We had a lot of new players coming in (last year including Ginnivan and Watson) and I had no idea how this group was going to mix together. (I thought), ‘This is going to be a big melting pot of beauty or disaster and Hick, you are the guy’.
“When you look at that group and the way they have bonded together, there is a fair bit of Hick about them”.
The thing that Mitchell clearly likes about Hickmott is his capacity to chart his own course, not follow the lead of others.
“The thing about Hick is he will challenge and do things that other people haven’t done or haven’t thought of yet, with a complete lack of self consciousness,” Mitchell said.
The Full Sweat documentary showed several examples of this in trying to get the best out of the forwards.
That ranged from getting a number of them to stop biting their fingernails (complete with a few humorous inspections) to keeping injured young forward Calsher Dear engaged by trying to teach him how to play Oasis’ Wonderwall on the guitar when a stress fracture prevented him from training.
The ambidextrous Mitchell, too, loves trying to get the best out of his players … like getting left-footer Henry Hustwaite to start cleaning his teeth with his right hand to increase greater awareness on the other side of his body, or showing Massimo D’Ambrosio a Zoolander clip more than a year ago to show he could actually learn to turn to his right side as much as his favoured left side.
The honest conversations. https://t.co/IUlC4HalAKpic.twitter.com/XYyViwcgIK
— HawthornZone (@hawthornzone) March 6, 2025
EVEN STAR RECRUITS CAN FEEL UNEASY
He might be one of Hawthorn’s boom recruits, but learning a new defensive system in a new group of teammates showed some of Tom Barrass’s vulnerabilities in the early part of the pre-season.
Barrass said he hadn’t felt satisfied in his life before his trade east and detailed how he took a long time to adapt to the Hawks’ defensive patterns.
He explained the possibilities of experiencing new things with his family and his football had led him to leave West Coast for Hawthorn.
“It is why I came over here to learn and to have new experiences,” he said. “And I think that is almost the most important thing in life.
“About two years ago I broke my spine playing footy. I had a fall against Richmond and broke five of my vertebrae and one of them I snapped pretty clearly.
“I started having some problems with my left arm especially.
“We had two kids under two … and it was a really tough time for our family. It shone a light on why I play the game, it became clear to me family was my No.1 priority.
“I decided to take the trip across the country and finish off the last bit of my career in Melbourne.
“I think Nadia (Barrass’ wife) knew that I wasn’t satisfied in my life and so she has been nothing but supportive,” he said.
“We got married (earlier this year) … it was the most magical day. For us it really solidified these decisions we made three or four years ago of becoming a family.”
NOT EVEN THE COACH KNOWS IF PRE-SEASON FORM STACKS UP
Mitchell’s honesty shines through including his inability – like most of us – to truly understand the merits of pre-season form.
The Hawks lost both their games to Geelong and Western Bulldogs and the coach was unsure how that translates to how they will go against the Swans on Friday night.
In the documentary, he was asked by former teammate Isaac Smith – who was an interested observer at the club’s training camp last month – how the Hawks were shaping up in the pre-season.
Mitchell shrugged his shoulders and said: “You know that 10 minutes before a game when you, ‘I’ve got no idea … are we on or off? Are we going to be awesome or terrible?’
“I find this time of pre-season a bit the same. Are we going to absolutely smash this or are we miles behind? I have no idea.”
We love honesty!
And while it doesn’t help us when it comes to tipping for Opening Round, it’s a sure sign that we can expect the unexpected from the Hawks on Friday night.
‘GET THE F*** OFF’: MITCHELL’S PRESEASON WARNING
A relentless Sam Mitchell warned his Hawthorn players during a recent match simulation that if they displayed ‘tired’ body language, it would likely cost them a spot in the HokBall 2.0 side this season.
In a sign the Hawks coach will push even harder this season as the club looks to go beyond its semi-final berth from last year, Mitchell told his assistant coaches that he wouldn’t tolerate his players showing signs of tiredness during matches.
Vision from Channel 7’s documentary Full Sweat on the Hawks’ preseason campaign, which aired on Wednesday night, showed Mitchell pause one session to make his point to the coaches, as well as detail his frustrations to the players in a later meeting.
“If they look tired, we’ll play with 16 (players) … get the f*** off,” a terse Mitchell told his coaches as part of the preparations for Hawthorn’s 2025 season, which starts with the season-opening clash with Sydney at the SCG on Friday night.
“The technical, tactical (side) I will leave to you (coaches), the thing I am not liking is the body language (of the players). As soon as they go ‘I’m tired’, they need to go ‘imagine what the other side is feeling’. I don’t want us looking tired.”
Mitchell later explained his edict to the players as he showed vision of the session.
“If you are not on the screen, just watch anyone,” he said. “That team (with tired body language) loses every f***ing game, I promise you … every game you play.
“You can be tired, you can’t look tired.”
WATCH THE VIDEO IN THE PLAYER ABOVE
In another key moment of the Full Sweat documentary, boom Hawthorn recruit Tom Barrass admitted he hadn’t felt satisfied in his life before his trade east, and detailed how he took a long time to adapt to the Hawks’ defensive patterns.
“I think Nadia (Barrass’ wife) knew that I wasn’t satisfied in my life and so she has been nothing but supportive,” he said.
“We got married (earlier this year) … and for us it really solidified these decisions we made three or four years ago of becoming a family.”
Hawthorn chief executive Ash Klein said on SEN the club hoped the documentary would give its fans an insight into the hard-work and preparation that goes into an AFL preseason.
“We had a bit of a conversation around the football club (about whether to proceed with the Channel 7 documentary) … where we spoke to Sam and our GM of footy Rob McCartney, we spoke to our leaders and even our high performance guys,” he said.
“We’ve had a pretty open and transparent focus over the last couple of years … within the four walls of our club we want to take our members on a pretty good journey.”
Klein also said the Hawks would invite four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson to the 10th anniversary of the club’s 2013-2015 flag threepeat later this season.
Clarkson, the current North Melbourne coach, hasn’t been back to the Hawks in recent years, having called the club’s behaviour “shameful” over its handling of the now-resolved racism saga.
Asked if the Hawks planned to re-embrace Clarkson, Klein said: “We have a three-peat reunion this year and Clarko will certainly be invited, as will all the players from that amazing era.”
“We’ve always embraced Clarko. He has obviously been an unbelievable servant to the club, so the door is always open for him.
“He is obviously at another club (the Kangaroos) at the moment just down the road. We have never closed the door; we have always had an open door with all of our players and coaches over time.
“We are celebrating 100 years (in 2025) and we celebrated that at the start of the year by inviting all of our former players and administrators back to the club.
“We had a huge day and a huge turnout for it.”
Klein said the Hawks would consider retaining a playing presence in Launceston even when the Tassie Devils start in the AFL competition as early as 2028.
Hawthorn signed a new two-year deal last month to host four home matches per season in Launceston until at least the end of the 2027 season.
“I don’t think there is any other state in the country where it isn’t shared between a couple of teams,” Klein said.
“I know there are more (teams) in Melbourne and Victoria than any other (state).
“We have been there (in Tasmania) for 25 years, it will be longer than that when we finish our next contract as well.
“We have such a connection with Launceston. We are really keen to see that continue down the track, but we haven’t had that conversation at the moment.”
Originally published as Full Sweat: Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell delivers brutal pre-season warning to his players
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