Hawthorn’s “Mosquito Fleet” on 2025 expectations, Hokball revolution, Hinkley v Ginnivan
After coming from nowhere in 2024, the Hawks are now the hunted. For some, that could bring a sense of dread, but for the mosquito fleet at Hawthorn, it’s exhilarating.
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Living your life with a target on your back might carry a sense of dread for some, but for Hawthorn’s dynamic “Mosquito Fleet” of small forwards, it brings a sense of exhilaration.
The Hawks were the hunters for most of last year; they are ready to be the hunted this year … and quite frankly they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Hawthorn’s stunning on-field transformation was one of the storylines of 2024, complete with a relentless work ethic, an almost in-your-face youthful exuberance from a team on the rise, and a brand of football that not only demanded attention but also a nickname – “HokBall” – which even those putting on the show had trouble truly defining.
Love them or loathe them, it became compelling viewing as the season rolled on like a crested wave before ending with a heartbreakingly close semi-final loss to Port Adelaide.
The quartet of All-Australian star Dylan Moore and young punks on the rise Jack Ginnivan, Nick “The Wizard” Watson and Connor Macdonald played a significant part in the Hawks’ revival.
It wasn’t just their high octane in-play excitement that drew attention, but also their unique after-goal – and after-game – celebrations.
As they gathered for a special Herald Sun photo shoot, they said they are determined to make “HokBall Mark 2.0’ every bit as exciting, but with hopefully a different ending.
The next instalment will come in prime-time viewing!
Get the popcorn ready …
From Friday night’s Opening Round clash with grand finalist Sydney at the SCG to a Gather Round grudge match in round 5 with the Power at a hostile Adelaide Oval, there will be no shortage of early storylines which will make it impossible to look away.
“We have already spoken about that; we know teams are going to come at us differently this year, so let’s accept it, let’s be ready for it,” Moore said.
He is convinced the Hawks had a taste of being hunted late last year as the brown and gold whirlwind rubbed a few opposition teams – and some of the footy public – up the wrong way.
“Towards the back end of last year, I felt like we were getting it (being hunted). People wanted to hunt us down,” he said.
“Even North Melbourne, in that last game (of the home-and-away season), they had an opportunity to take us down. They tried to play a few tricks against us, but we stood up to that. Then the Doggies (in the elimination final), it felt like it was two in-form teams of the competition. They tried to hunt us.
“And definitely against Port Adelaide (in the semi-final) it felt we were the hunted. I know we lost the game (by three points), but it felt like we gave it everything.
“That’s how it is going to feel this year. It is not going to feel like it was in the middle of last year when no one really expected us to do much.”
‘IF YOU DON’T WORK HARD, YOU WON’T BE GETTING A GAME’
It’s impossible to say where “Hokball” began, and it’s not a term that coach Sam Mitchell would have willingly coined.
But a comment from the coach to his players as they looked at striking a balance between having fun and working bloody hard has become the essence of it.
Mitchell was a superstar as a player, but also a combative competitor who rarely smiled on-field. But he gave the green light for his young Hawks to have fun … with one key caveat.
“As a player everyone talked about Sam as someone who worked on his skills so hard that you couldn’t really tell whether he was a left-footer or right footer,” Moore said.
“That’s what he preached to us … ‘You better work hard because if you don’t work hard, you won’t be getting a game’.”
Macdonald said the Hawks have never had any issue following the coach’s decree on hard work and it’s only been magnified by the heartache of last year’s finals loss.
“It leaves a fire in your belly when you are so close,” Macdonald said about the loss to Port.
“I think the feeling of winning that game (against the Bulldogs) the week before (in front of 97,828 fans) then just missing out a week later leads to an everlasting hunger.
“We want to experience that (winning finals) feeling again. We have just tried to come back with a mindset of hungriness.
“We didn’t get what we wanted last year so it is a matter of going back again and putting in the work and making sure you give yourself the best chance to go further this year.
“Each year is different. You can’t replicate everything we did from last year. Footy changes, but the hard work never goes away.”
THE DYNAMIC
Moore, Ginnivan, Macdonald and Watson barely trained a full session as a group before they took the field for their first AFL game together in round 1 last year.
By season’s end, the quartet had kicked 117 goals.
They are all different, not just in age.
Moore is 25; Ginnivan and Macdonald are 22; Watson is only 20.
Put them in the same room and they’re infectious, laughing and joking, as the recent photo shoot with the Herald Sun’s Michael Klein revealed.
Put them on the field together and their competitive juices start flowing, ensuring they are as dangerous to a defence as any small forward group in the AFL.
Moore said: “It’s well documented we didn’t start last year the way we wanted. But we had a brand new forward line. We hadn’t played a game together until round 1 and we never really got a chance to train together because everyone had a few niggles.
“We were probably never going to function until about six or eight weeks in, and once we started functioning and got to know how we all play, it started working.”
The Hawks lost their first five games; then reeled off 14 wins from their next 18 games.
The bond was formed, and Macdonald says it is now unbreakable.
“We’ve definitely evolved with it, and once we started playing good footy together, and the crowd was buying in, we just decided to have some fun with it,” Macdonald said.
“We found that fine line between having fun and working hard, and obviously that came with the pressure, the chasing and tackling. If you don’t do that, you can’t play well.”
WHATSAPP WHIZZES
There are several WhatsApp groups at the Hawthorn Football Club, but there is one that fires Moore up as much as any of the others.
“We do have a cool little WhatsApp group with us guys … the Mosquitos,” Moore said.
“Before a game, Connor might message, ‘Moorey, I just want to see you work hard today’. Ginni might say, ‘Connor, I just need you to compete today’. It might be about the little things we have worked on during the week.
“When Connor got ‘best on’ in Adelaide (in round 20), I sent him a message after the game, saying: ‘I love seeing the way you played today’,” Moore said.
“It warms my heart when one of the guys sends me a message saying I played well today.
“The trust we are building on the field is growing … we know how each of us is going to play, I am not just talking about the ‘Mosquitos’, I am talking about the whole group.”
The young forwards are driving Moore, just as Macdonald, Ginnivan and Watson credit Moore for his leadership, and Luke Breust and Jack Gunston for their tutelage as important in their development.
Moore said: “Every day I come to the club I want to get better. I want to have a better game than the last one, I want to have a better season than the last one.
“My mindset is that I am trying to be an 18-year-old coming, learning and having these young guys push me has been great. They are pushing me to get better.”
CELEBRATION TIME
Moore has never been a big on-field celebrator, but concedes he has softened a little after being swept up in the ‘Mosquito’ connection.
He knows it is good for the group, and provides a connection between the team and crowd.
“I am like in the middle bracket in terms of age in the forward line and I am not one who really does all that, but I love seeing the boys do it,” he said.
“I know how much it does for them and how much it gets the crowd going. Those three guys in particular really get the crowd going.
“I can feed off that and so can ‘Punky’ (Breust) and ‘Gunners’ (Gunston).
“I remember speaking to (Jack) Scrimshaw at halftime (of the Bulldogs’ elimination final) … I just said to him, ‘That’s why I play footy, to experience these moments’.
“To see (Macdonald), ‘Wizard’ (Watson) and Ginni with the crowd, those moments you are going to have forever.”
Macdonald heaped praise on Moore, and the veterans forward in Breust and Gunston, for not only allowing the next wave to be themselves, but for their leadership.
“I can’t thank those boys enough,” he said. “They have been awesome.
“(Breust and Gunston) have had so much success and know so much about the game that for us to come in every day and learn from them is amazing.”
UNPACKING THE PORT LOSS, SUPPORTING GINNI
Ginnivan will be front and centre for the final game of Gather Round for the second year in a row and his teammates will be supporting him all the way.
Last year, it was the game in which he took on his 2023 Collingwood premiership teammates for the first time.
Fast forward a year and the spotlight will be on him again as he and the Hawks front up against Port Adelaide, the first time the two teams will have met since last year’s semi-final.
Back then, Ginnivan was accused of being disrespectful when he posted a cheeky pre-match social media post suggesting the Hawks would be headed to Sydney for a preliminary final.
James Sicily’s shot at goal hit the post just moments before the final siren, a result that sent the Hawks packing. Then Ken Hinkley taunted Ginnivan as the players were coming off after the match, which led to heated scenes and ultimately a $20,000 for the Port Adelaide coach.
Moore said the Hawks had learnt so many valuable lessons from the game.
“It’s a game of inches … and it is heightened in finals,” he said. “In the home-and-away season, it feels like you can sometimes get away with a few things.
“We just missed an opportunity. In finals, it is the best against the best, and if you are slightly off on the day, you can get picked apart. We just found out the hard way.”
In the aftermath, Ginnivan told club leaders that he regretted the social media post and had learnt from the experience.
Moore, one of the club’s leaders, said: “Did I need to have a massive chat with him (Ginnivan)? No. We have smaller chats with him just to help him out. He is going to learn from this.
“Ginni has had the limelight put on him from such a young age … I never had to experience what he did when I was young.
“Every mistake he makes is heightened. All we can do is wrap our arms around him and know that he will make a better decision next time.
“He knows he has our full support.”
PAY THE PRICE
It seems fitting that as the Hawks prepare to celebrate 100 years in the VFL-AFL competition, Moore uses a famous line that helped inspire one of the club’s greatest premiership victories.
When asked about whether the Mosquito Hawks will continue with their energetic and at times brash style, he said: “We hope so.
“We hope we win games but it will all come down to whether we are willing to do the work and do the hard things required in the game … and pay the price for victory.
“Hawthorn is all about paying the price to win. Then we can enjoy it and bring people along with us.”
Moore’s pay-the-price reference harks back to an inspirational Allan Jeans halftime speech during the 1989 grand final when a battered and bruised Hawthorn needed to keep fighting against a younger Geelong side.
The Hawks ended up holding on that day by six points to win a classic grand final.
Moore said the younger generation of Hawks had been inspired this year by seeing so many greats of the past come back to celebrate the 100th anniversary, which will be officially celebrated when the club takes on Richmond on May 4.
“It’s a real pinch-yourself moment … some of them (the past greats) are genuine legends who had so much success,” he said. “That’s what we want to do.
“You can see how passionate they are for us to have some success.”
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