AFL Collingwood v Hawthorn: Inside Sam Mitchell’s post-game review of Hawks’ shocking loss to Magpies

Sam Mitchell locked his playing group in a meeting room after the Hawks’ shocking performance against Collingwood to deliver some “home truths”. Could that include some bold selection calls to send a message?

It was the 30-minute meeting that Hawthorn hopes can start to bridge a gap to the best sides in the game that appears to only be growing.

Stinging from a 51-point loss to Collingwood, Hawks coach Sam Mitchell let his players talk between themselves for at least 10 minutes before marching, with his assistants in tow, into the player meeting room in the MCG’s away changerooms.

As part of the meeting, the line coaches pulled their groups in for soul searching.

The players didn’t emerge from the rooms until 11pm, nearly 45 minutes after the final siren, and half-an-hour after the players were sent to stew.

While Mitchell said he was “not going to tell you that” when asked in his press conference what the players came up with behind closed doors, midfielder Conor Nash was clear that they questioned what matters to this Hawthorn team.

“It (the meeting) went for a while. We just spoke some home truths about where we are at and what’s not working. It was all pretty simple stuff,” Nash told this masthead.

“It was just what we value as a group. We’ve confused that and we just need to get back to simple stuff and get our priorities right.”

“It’s good to do the talking, it’s going to have to come down to action at some stage and hopefully Thursday night (against the Western Bulldogs) we will get to the start of that,” Mitchell told ABC Sport on Saturday.

Mitchell revealed that under-siege skipper James Sicily was “probably our most vocal” player in the meeting as he searched for a way forward for his side.

“He is really passionate ... he feels heavily invested in what we are doing and he is a super competitive athlete so he is as disappointed as anyone,” the coach said.

Now the players have talked it through, the coaches will have to sit down and take stock.

Much of the post-mortem will focus on Hawthorn’s tackle and pressure – more on that later – and that is largely to blame for a sudden defensive slide.

The Pies are flying and will make some other defences look silly this year but the flat-footed Hawks defenders were not caught out for the first time.

Gold Coast (104 points), Brisbane (93) and now Collingwood (107) have all put up scores on the Hawthorn defence.

Port Adelaide’s Ken Hinkley inspired rout of the Hawks in Gather Round was the only time in 18 matches Hawthorn had conceded 90 points or more before these last three weeks.

A lot of the problems start further up the field, but Mitchell’s defensive group needs some kind of refresh.

The introduction of Josh Battle and Tom Barrass – both of whom have been good to start at their second club – has thrown some roles around.

Sicily and Jack Scrimshaw were superb as tall defenders alongside Sam Frost last year, but they seem thrown out of place.

Even Mitchell, who has fiercely defended his skipper, said on Saturday Sicily looked “down on his confidence” and wasn’t “sticking his marks” like normal.

James Sicily had the second-lowest disposal count of any player with more than 30 per cent time on ground. Picture: James Wiltshire/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Scrimshaw was subbed out feeling sore on Friday and Sicily is playing sore, even as Mitchell keeps defending the state of his groins.

Four tall defenders was too many against the Pies.

Sicily was sent forward, in a swap with Josh Weddle, in the second half and didn’t have an impact.

The skipper looks like he needs a little rest, but Mitchell will ponder if he can afford that as his team’s fortune fades.

There wasn’t any run from defence on Friday – it’s hard when the opposition is kicking goals – but an extra galloper like Seamus Mitchell or Bailey Macdonald would be useful back there.

Mitchell followed up a 36-disposal game against Brisbane in the VFL with another 35 touches and 12 marks against Collingwood on Saturday and will again press his claim for a senior recall.

Should Seamus Mitchell come into the senior side as another small defender? Picture: Michael Klein

Weddle looks like he needs to be locked into a position and play there for a full game.

Blake Hardwick is a good defender who has turned into an OK attacker, another who has been forced out of position.

Right now, it looks like Mitchell and his coaches are picking their best 23 players, not the best players for the roles required.

A rethink is needed.

To a lot of the football world, last year’s stunning Hawthorn rise was all about the showy celebrations, the young arrogance and the flashy goals.

To the Hawks, 2024’s ‘Hokball’ was more about the gritty things.

“It’s our pressure stuff. That’s what got us into contention last year and what made us a good team last year, our pressure around the contest,” Nash said.

Hawthorn’s tackling needs to improve. Picture: Quinn Rooney

“We got smoked in the tackle count. We are too easy to pressure, other teams are pressuring us too easily.

“Some of it was to do with us not absorbing the pressure that well. We didn’t fight through it, we just off-loaded it. Somebody would be getting tackles, offload a bad handball to someone else and it’s easy for them to get tackled, so that is two against you.

“When it was our turn (to tackle), it wasn’t good enough with our defensive effort around the contest.”

The tackle count smashing – in which Hawthorn lost the stat 38-82 – was alarming after the Hawks put up only 36 tackles last week in losing to the Lions.

Hawthorn lost that count by 23.

The damning tackle numbers will get more airplay this week than Ange Postecoglou’s boast about second year success did.

The -44 differential in the Collingwood loss was Hawthorn’s second-worst tackle defeat on record, and for the Magpies, the +44 win was their best ever return.

Mitchell said post-match that the Hawks coaching group needed to adjust how players approached the game to simple get in the way of the opposition more because “you’re not going to beat a side like (Collingwood) if you only lay 38 tackles”.

Sam Mitchell and his coaching staff has plenty of issues to resolve. Picture: Michael Klein

Nash said pressure and tackling was addressed in the week leading up the Pies loss, but it wasn’t fixed.

“It goes back to what we value and listening to what’s being said,” Nash said.

“We have spoken about it during the week, we don’t gloss over that stuff. That’s why we were questioning what we value.”

If the Hawks’ tackle heat was on the level of your bathroom tiles during a 2am toilet call, the Pies were hotter than the inside of a fresh party pie.

Hawthorn fumbled their way into the arms of Collingwood tacklers and the Pies were clinical in sweeping the ball forward to kick it towards Jamie Elliott.

The Pies scored 71 of their 107 points off turnover, the seventh best return under Craig McRae, and their scoring rate off 61 per cent of their 44 inside-50s was the third best effort under the coach.

So deadly was Collingwood, that it generated only 16 turnovers in the forward half – the league average is 20 – but the Magpies capitalised at a big rate, scoring 39 points off those turnovers.

Dan Houston’s kicking, Elliott’s marking on the lead and Steele Sidebottom’s constant class will fill up the highlight reels.

But for Nash, that brutally efficient Pies attack all came from the pressure his side couldn’t produce.

“I thought their pressure was elite,” he said.

“It was just the basics of the game, being able to apply enormous pressure on the opposition when they have the footy and be clean with it going forward.

“A lot of it was our mistakes. I genuinely believe that is what it boils down to. I know there were some good fancy plays and all that but anybody would tell you a lot of it boils down to that (pressure).”

The Hawks knew this five-week stretch would test their capabilities, having only claimed one scalp (GWS in round 3) from teams inside the top eight.

So far Mitchell’s side has failed the test and the losses have been getting worse, with a tight clash against the Suns followed by a fade out against the Lions and a beat down from the Pies.

Mitchell and his team hate to lose but as Nathan Buckley put it on Fox Footy on Friday, the Hawks have now seen the best and “they are 10 goals off them”.

The Western Bulldogs and Adelaide wait in the next fortnight before the club’s bye, and a 7-2 record is in danger of slipping to 7-7.

On Saturday, Mitchell was clear the Pies loss “showed we have got a bit of work to do”.

Jack Ginnivan still had a little smile when he declared his teammates would have to bring their mouthguards to training this week.

Nash said his team would hold together, hopefully better than they are holding their tackles at the moment.

“The path to success is never linear and going straight up,” he said.

“We have some bumps at the minute, but we won’t fracture as a group, as a club. We will bond together and get ourselves right, no doubt about that.

“That is what good teams do. There is stuff to work on and we will have some home truther but we won’t be fracturing, that is for sure.”

Originally published as AFL Collingwood v Hawthorn: Inside Sam Mitchell’s post-game review of Hawks’ shocking loss to Magpies