Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell says Opening Round is a chance to show worth with Sydney-sized scalp

Sam Mitchell says Hawthorn must show its growth against Sydney, a side they struggled to match last season.

Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell sees his side’s Opening Round clash against Sydney as an opportunity to showcase where they stand among the competition’s heavyweights.

The Hawks spun a 0-5 start to finish the season winning a final AS one of the most in-form teams in the competition.

But Mitchell thought the sixth-place finish was proof the Hawks “weren’t good enough” to match it with the five teams ahead of them and made note of Sydney being one of them.

“I think you always look backwards knowing you need to look forward,” Mitchell said.

“I think the thing we look backwards and say ‘when we work really hard, we improve’, so we have evidence now that we can improve.

“We know we need to, we need to beat the top sides regularly and when it matters. We had a little taste of finals footy, we obviously want to get back to there and get more of that.

“Realistically, we weren’t good enough, we finished sixth, there were five teams in front of us and the Swans were certainly one of those.

“They’re one of the teams we’re going to need to compete against and beat to go where we want to go.

“It’s a great opportunity to play against them now we have evidence we can improve and need to put it on show.”

James Sicily will be an interesting watch this year with the additions of Tom Barrass and Josh Battle to the Hawthorn backline. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Hawthorn’s last match against Sydney was a turning point in its season.

The Hawks slumped to 1-6 after the 76-point drubbing and Mitchell’s emotion boiled over as he delivered an old-fashioned quarter-time spray.

There has been no need for such stern delivery from Mitchell since, but he has still kept a tight ship, issuing his group a long list of areas to improve in this pre-season.

“We didn’t finish that well last year, we’ve got a huge amount of improvements (left) in lots of parts of our game,” he said.

“I think our consistency quarter to quarter, our close-game scenario needs to improve, we’ve got a heap of things we need to get better at.

“We finished sixth but this year we’re equal 18th or equal first depending if you’re a glass half full or empty.

“I didn’t think there was a shortage of things we could improve this pre-season.”

Sam Mitchell (right) issued his players a long list of things to improve on this pre-season. Picture: Michael Klein

With Tom Barrass and Josh Battle coming in to solidify the Hawks backline, expectation has grown as to what they can achieve this season.

Mitchell said it would be “hypocritical” of Hawthorn to start listening to outside noise now.

“Expectation is a funny thing, if you get caught up, start thinking about that and start talking about it inside, then you can get off track,” he said.

“A couple of years ago we gutted the list and we were tanking. We didn’t listen to the outside world when that was all happening.

“It would be a bit hypocritical of us now to be talking of what ‘this is what the world thinks of us, this is what we should do’.

“I think every coach would be the same, listen to your internal expectations, the expectations of your coaches and teammates and try live up to that.

“If you live up to that, then the outside world will handle itself.”

Originally published as Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell says Opening Round is a chance to show worth with Sydney-sized scalp