AFL Finals: Jai Serong to replace injured Hawk Sam Frost

Jai Serong is set to step into the cauldron of Adelaide Oval on Sunday night, and Hawthorn’s David Hale said picking him was a no-brainer. SIMEON THOMAS-WILSON has the details.

Hawthorn assistant David Hale says it wasn’t too hard of a decision to go with nine-gamer Jai Serong to replace Sam Frost as he backed the Hawks team defence to compensate for the loss of the important key defender.

Frost will miss the rest of the finals after suffering a bone stress injury and Serong has won the race to replace him for the Hawks’ semi-final against Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Friday night.

At 193cm, Serong and the Hawks defence will come up against 200cm Charlie Dixon, 197cm Esava Ratugolea, 198cm Todd Marshall and 192cm Mitch Georgiades as the Power decide to go with four talls in attack.

At Hawthorn’s captain’s run at Adelaide Oval on Thursday, Hale said Serong had been knocking down the door.

“He has been in great form for two to three months, he hasn’t put a foot wrong,” he said.

“We have great confidence in our backline and our whole team defence system and when it came to picking a player he was in the right spot at the right time and in good form so it wasn’t too hard of a decision.

An injured Sam Frost watches on. Picture: Morgan Hancock/Getty Images

“I think we have a number of guys who are in that same bracket, we had Josh Ward play eight to 10 weeks in the VFL knocking down the door and Jai was in the same boat.

“We haven’t really had any defenders go down with injury and he has been plying his trade and developing well.”

The last time the Hawks played at Adelaide Oval, Adelaide went with four talls to try and exploit their lack of height in the Hawthorn defence.

But this backfired on the Crows as the Hawks were able to rebound way too easily as they smashed Matthew Nicks’ side.

Hale said the Hawks were confidence in their defence if the Power went tall.

“We definitely got confidence in the guys we have down there, but also our rebound game and our team defence has been strong,” he said.

“We can use it as a springboard for offence, the way we defend the whole of the ground is important but it will also be an important avenue for us to score as well.”

He said the Hawks had also learnt from their last meeting with the Power at Adelaide Oval, in which they gave up a big lead to go down to Port in the final seconds.

“Not so much owe one, I think we had our opportunities in that game. We did plenty of things right that day and unfortunately didn’t get the result,” he said.

“But we learnt a lot from that game, and hopefully it doesn’t come down to the last quarter again and we can be a winning position.

“Some things around our structures, the way we want to play in tight situations. Whether that is in front of the ball or at the source.

“Hopefully we don’t have to put those in place but finals are a different game and pressure situation so hopefully we have learnt from that.”

Hale also said while star midfielder Will Day trained on Wednesday, he still had plenty of boxes to tick.

Jai Serong. Picture: Morgan Hancock/Getty Images

Ethan Phillips. Picture: Morgan Hancock/Getty Images

“He trained yesterday, he has been ruled out so that will be something that we have to come across if we get up and I’m sure it will be a hard decision if that gets to it,” he said.

“I think he still has quite a few boxes to tick, yesterday was probably the first step in terms of contact but going from that level to playing an AFL final is a fairly steep curve so we get to that point if we need to.

“If we can get our pressure around the ball right, we have great confidence in our backline and it has held up all year so that is something that we will deal with if we have to but we have confidence in what we have got out there.”

The Hawks were joined by four-time Port Adelaide best and fairest Kane Cornes on their flight from Melbourne to Adelaide on Thursday.

“He has been a supporter of ours for a few months now so hopefully we can do another one for him on Friday night,” Hale said.

Originally published as AFL Finals: Jai Serong to replace injured Hawk Sam Frost