Jeff Kennett says Hawthorn’s ‘clinical’ list management separates it from rival clubs

HAWTHORN’S “clinical” approach to list management is what separates them from rival clubs, former Hawks president Jeff Kennett has declared.

HAWTHORN’S “clinical” approach to list management is what separates them from other clubs, former Hawks president Jeff Kennett declared on Friday.

Kennett gave a thumbs up to coach Alastair Clarkson’s treatment of club greats Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis.

“It’s what separates Hawthorn, in one sense, from the rest,” Kennett said.

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“I’ve always said, in order to be successful in any organisation — and that includes sporting bodies — you’ve got to have very good people from top to bottom and you’ve got to have very good governance — and you can’t take your eye off what is the objective, and in a football club it is winning premierships.

“Over the years we have seen many clubs that have done well, won premierships and then dropped off the radar all together.”

Kennett said the Hawks fell away in 2009 after winning a flag, partly due to injuries, before replenishing the list to add three more premierships in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Jeff Kennett has ticked off Sam Mitchell’s move to West Coast.

“I look at what is happening now and see it as another highly-professional, terribly clinical act of professionalism,” Kennett said.

“When Hawthorn signed those four players earlier in the year — Shaun Burgoyne, Josh Gibson, Sam Mitchell and Luke Hodge — I thought to myself: ‘This is unsustainable, these guys are all very good contributors, but they’re all getting older and they’re all a little slower’.

“You can have one or two of them, but I didn’t think you could have four.

“What the club has done is knowing that, having identified people who will give us speed — and we must all admit that the AFL game as it is played today is faster than I have ever seen in my life — so unless you’ve got speed, particularly down the wings, you are limiting your opportunities.

“In the end, the club and the membership is bigger than any individual — and that is something Hawthorn has been able to demonstrate since about 2005.”