{"id":129551,"date":"2025-09-09T06:23:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T06:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/129551\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T06:23:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T06:23:09","slug":"why-premiership-star-tom-barrass-says-hawthorn-hawks-can-fly-high-in-september-as-they-prepare-to-face-adelaide-crows-at-adelaide-oval","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/129551\/","title":{"rendered":"Why premiership star Tom Barrass says Hawthorn Hawks can fly high in September as they prepare to face Adelaide Crows at Adelaide Oval"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cI think the Hawks have done a terrific job of managing that list build and giving the boys the right opportunity to put their best foot forward at this time of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were initial teething problems in defence, with Barrass and former Saint Josh Battle having to mesh their skills with new teammates, including skipper James Sicily. That Battle soon flourished to the point he was named an All-Australian for the first time, while Barrass, a Claremont product taken with pick No.43 in the 2013 national draft, went on to enjoy a stellar season, has reinforced just how well they settled any problems.<\/p>\n

\"Happy<\/p>\n

Happy days: Barrass (right) and former Saint Josh Battle (left) have built cohesion in the Hawks\u2019 backline.Credit: AFL Photos<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are certainly feeling a lot better than we did previously,\u201d Barrass said.<\/p>\n

\u201cJosh and I probably took a little bit to fit in and read the room on how the boys play together.<\/p>\n

\u201cI, obviously, played alongside Jeremy [McGovern] for a long time. We are both jumping-type players. Josh [Battle] and James [Sicily] aren\u2019t jumping-type players, so we took a little bit to figure each other out. But it\u2019s been great the last eight to 10 weeks \u2013 I feel we have built some cohesion.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy role is to bring the ball to ground, really, and create a contest. Those guys are such great, well-rounded players, so if the ball is in their hands, they usually make the correct decision, and that\u2019s not mentioning other parts of the back line.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Jack] Scrimshaw has complemented us really nicely. I feel we are building some cohesion as a unit. Hopefully, we can carry that into this weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a year of change for Barrass, influencer wife Nadia Rosa, and their two young boys \u2013 Billy and Benson. He and Nadia, who is the stepsister of late Hollywood star Heath Ledger, were married in February in Perth.<\/p>\n

The move to Melbourne was a major one, but Barrass, the son of late legendary WA journalist Tony Barrass, the first Australian reporter to be jailed for refusing to reveal his source to a court of law, felt he needed a fresh challenge.<\/p>\n

The result has been something of an \u201caudit\u201d, for Barrass the footballer, and Barrass the family man.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s getting an audit on who you are and what you love doing \u2013 how you love spending your time, how you treat your family, all kinds of great things regarding personal growth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think \u2018whirlwind\u2019 would be a good way to describe it. I have learnt so much about myself coming over here and playing for a new footy club. That\u2019s mostly as a person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barrass said the public gaze was greater in the two-team town of Perth than it has been so far in Melbourne.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say it\u2019s probably easier in Melbourne,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou face a lot of scrutiny in Perth \u2013 there is a lot of pressure to perform over there. You get a bit more anonymity over here, but only just.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the Hawks do climb the AFL mountain this September, Barrass knows that anonymity may change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI think the Hawks have done a terrific job of managing that list build and giving the boys…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-129551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}