AFL 2021: Sam Mitchell rates the exciting kids set to fast-track Hawthorn rebuild
A late draft pick has been doing things on the track that not many others can do, according to Sam Mitchell. Could he be the Hawks’ surprise packet of 2021?
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Hawthorn head of development Sam Mitchell said James Sicily has become the perfect mentor for No. 6 draft pick Denver Grainger-Barras as he closes in on an early-season debut.
The Hawks enter uncharted territory with plentiful chances to play their batch of kids, having retired five 30-plus veterans plus Tom Scully and with Sicily and Jack Gunston to miss the early rounds.
Swan Districts intercept defender Grainger-Barras and the club’s No. 35 selection Connor Downie will both get chances to impress in pre-season matches against the Western Bulldogs and North Melbourne.
Mitchell admitted at times the club’s development might bring about something of a “rollercoaster” ride but the Hawks believe they are well-stocked for players under 22.
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Brownlow Medallist Tom Mitchell met with his surgeon in recent days after a shoulder reconstruction in October and will start skills next week in the hope of pushing for an early-rounds return.
Bookends Sicily (August ACL tear) and Gunston (back surgery) are out for the medium-term.
But Mitchell said Sicily, known as an on-field firebrand, had embraced the role of a quasi backline coach for the impressive Grainger-Barras.
“If you look at Denver and Connor Downie, if things go well for them they can play footy pretty early on in the pre-season. It is all going to be based on their performances in the next 4-6 weeks before Round 1 comes along.
“We have a couple more internal trials and a hitout against the Bulldogs and then we play the Roos in Tassie, so we will see how some of those guys perform when they have a little more pressure against good opponents.
“Obviously it’s a pain to lose Sicily but from a maturity point of view he has been really good. He is out on the track coaching and walking around with our defenders, talking to Denver about how to play the role and he has been one of our really strong leaders amongst our playing group.
“Jack (Gunston) has been similar. It’s an enormous credit to those guys given they are injured. Having “Sic” help Denver has been interesting. Players are the best coaches and I see him sitting next to (defensive coach) Chris Newman regularly watching players. James would be horrified to hear me say this but it wouldn’t surprise me if he ends up in the coaching game. He has that inquisitive nature about him and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he can blossom into a coach in the future.”
SAM MITCHELL ON:
No. 6 draft pick Denver Grainger-Barras, an intercepting defender
“He’s been going really well. We have played in little intra-club scratch matches of 20 and 30 minutes and he’s showing really good signs. You can understand why he’s an early pick, his reading of the ball in flight is outstanding. Like most of these kids he is still learning the game. It’s not for me to say who is in the selection frame (for Round 1) but if you looked at his match play last week you would say he’s ready to play. Then you look at other training stuff and he’s a little green and now quite ready. He is quite athletic and tall and can play a multitude of roles but he’s well suited to that mid-tier defender who can read the ball in flight and hopefully he is a guy who can turn over a lot of the footy in the way James Sicily plays.”
Mid-sized defender Connor Downie, the No. 35 pick in last year’s national draft
“He’s been playing mostly on a wing with a little bit of half back and half-forward. He’s a ripper kid. Desperate to learn, desperate to improve, he wants to look at vision, he wants to grab hold of coaches. He has beautiful kicking stills and runs well in space.”
Tyler Brockman, a hard-tackling Subiaco small forward taken at pick 46 in last year’s draft
“He is going to have a pretty special highlights tape. If we fast-forward 10 years, you look at the career he is going to have and if you look at the highlights tape there won’t be too many better.
He is doing a few little special things where you think, there are not too many who could have done what he just did. The players are loving him as well. He’s got an infectious smile and a cheeky grin around him. He is a small crumbing forward so you can imagine him floating around the packs in Luke Breust’s style.
“He has a desire to get after the opposition, he’s quite selfless around goals and he squares it quite a bit and puts teammates into better positions.
“He is agile and has nice skills on both sides, I didn’t initially know if he was left or right footed so he’s got a pretty bright future.”
Midfielder James Worpel, who won the 2019 best-and-fairest at 20 but was quieter in his third season
“It was his third year and he wasn’t quite as strong as the year before, but if you look at what James Worpel produced he still held the bar pretty high. He came back to the pre-season and said I am better than I played last year and I will prove it.
“He is 22 and he is winning most of the physical testing, beating guys who are 27 and 28. He is on a mission as far as improvement not just of himself but the whole group.
“His promotion into the leadership group means he will get that exposure and drag a lot of younger guys along with him.”
Former No. 7 draft pick Jack Scrimshaw who enjoyed a breakout 2020 season in his second season after being traded from Gold Coast
“His body language sometimes suggests he is a little laconic but what he produces is pretty consistent in a tough position so he’s really important for us. He has a little X factor in the back half, he is a nice size, he can take a tall or small and he’s damaging by leg. He has started to figure out what is the really important part of his game and what he needs to produce consistently but also his weaknesses. As a defender if you have a weakness you can get exposed so he needs to make sure he is consistent and there are only good things ahead.”
Will Day, who enjoyed a top-five Rising Star finish as the No. 13 selection in the 2019 national draft
“He is a guy who is just about the first magnet on the board. Where he plays this year, no one knows just yet. He played a lot as a defender and at times we pushed him up onto a wing and he wasn’t really ready to play there but he has such a high footy IQ. His ability to catch on is really strong. He will do some things at his age that he shouldn’t be able to do until 26. Just that clever little handball that most players would get cut off, but he has that spatial awareness. He’s going to be a player for us for a long time and it’s what we are trying to embed with that new wave of talent coming through.”
Key position forward Mitch Lewis, who played only eight games last year after 20 games in 2019
“He struggled to get continuity in his body last year. But we have done a lot of one-on-one coaching this summer. Sometimes you go and do footy drills that are for everyone but we have done a lot of specific forward patterning and Craig McRae has really brought those guys along. He hasn’t missed anything in training and he is ready to have a much more significant impact than he did last year. He came back pre-Christmas before he needed to and did a heap of work and he wants to improve.”
Dylan Moore, a 176cm creative forward who had 25 possessions in the last game of the year
“Dylan is a great story. He won himself the last spot on the list with his last game of the year and if you ask him he will quickly tell you he got a Brownlow vote. He really did play his role. He had some niggly groin trouble last year and never got a run at it but this time he’s been on track and he has been training the whole pre-season. He has had some really strong performances in the scratch matches so far. Guys like him will get some opportunities in the pre-season and we will see if they can take them.”
Changkuoth Jiath, who played five games last year as a creative defender
“With ‘CJ”, his athleticism is magnificent and with his closing speed he is a difficult player to play on and he’s become more consistent in his life and as a player.
“His best is phenomenal but his worst did cost us fairly regularly and as a defender that’s quite tough. The thing he has worked on and credit to him is doing the simple things well. When you are as exciting as him being reliable can be difficult but at training his good moments are just as regular and his moments of not concentrating have become much less regular. He is a guy with a big personality and some spark and spunk to our playing group and if he can stay consistent the opportunities will be there.”
Damon Greaves, a 20-year-old defender who played three late games in 2020 averaging 17 disposals and 90 per cent efficiency
“He has had a little bit of a different path to the AFL. He wasn’t an early pick, he didn’t play as soon as he came in. It’s a great lesson if you put your head down and bum up. His level of improvement came through sheer hard work. From a Hawthorn point of view he is just really reliable. His ability to do the simple things well is what we need as a team. If you look at the backline mix if (backline coach) Chris Newman needs people like Denver to express themselves, you have Damon doing the right thing every time. It’s great to have a mix of guys who are a little more flighty and take risks and then a go who is very reliable in behind them as an important part of the defensive mix.”
Third-year defender Jacob Koschitzke, who has now been thrown forward as a 196cm key position tall
“In his first years he was interrupted by a few things. Firstly physically and the position he was playing as a defender and then half way through last year we moved him forward. He has all the attributes now to be a very strong AFL player as a big strapping lad who also has a really good engine.
“Craig McRae came in as a forwards coach and is teaching him running patterns and that attention to detail. He is one of a handful of players who haven’t debuted yet but we think there are exciting times ahead. They are part of the next wave of talent and part of the foundation we are trying to lay for this next phase of success.”
Originally published as AFL 2021: Sam Mitchell rates the exciting kids set to fast-track Hawthorn rebuild
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