{"id":138499,"date":"2025-09-12T20:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T20:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/138499\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T20:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T20:19:07","slug":"sam-mitchell-addresses-zach-merrett-furore-hawthorn-hawks-press-conference-hawks-vs-crows-semi-final-result-what-did-he-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/138499\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Mitchell addresses Zach Merrett furore, Hawthorn Hawks press conference, Hawks vs Crows semi final result, what did he say?"},"content":{"rendered":"

An ecstatic Sam Mitchell felt Hawthorn\u2019s barnstorming win over Adelaide <\/a>exorcised some demons the Hawks had at Adelaide Oval, and declared his players won\u2019t be satisfied simply to have made it to a preliminary final.<\/p>\n

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The Hawks had lost six of their past seven games at their bogey venue, including last year\u2019s season-ending semi-final heartbreaker to Port Adelaide, but set up a preliminary final clash against Geelong with an emphatic 34-point win against the minor premiers on Friday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was sort of a sense that we needed to win here in a big game because we\u2019ve had some pain at this venue over the years,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe actually feel like we\u2019ve played some good footy here, we\u2019ve just struggled to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, we\u2019ve exorcised a few demons \u2026 but getting to the prelim is not the aim, we have big things we\u2019re hoping for in front of us.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get Geelong next, so it\u2019s a pretty exciting time to be a Hawks fan, coach or player.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everyone goes into work on Monday pretty optimistic and hopeful of what we can achieve, but the prelim weekend is not the aim.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really proud of what it has taken to get here, but \u2026 getting here is a stepping stone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sat at this exact table last year heartbroken by the loss and the missed opportunity of what could\u2019ve been.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think everyone had a level of pain and understanding that getting that far is really difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s enormously hard work and you\u2019ve got to have a huge amount of respect for the teams that just back it up year after year.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeelong is one of those, and Adelaide finished on top and get to this weekend and couldn\u2019t go a bit further, but they didn\u2019t have the experience that our players have had now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evergreen veteran Jack Gunston was enormous with five goals, but he had plenty of willing helpers further afield where Jai Newcombe, Josh Ward, and James Worpel dominated the Crows\u2019 misfiring midfield.<\/p>\n

Mitchell coy over Merrett meeting | 00:56<\/p>\n

Gunston\u2019s match-winning haul took his tally to 70 goals in his second season since returning from a year at Brisbane.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d love to say that I had this plan and we knew he\u2019d be this, but I\u2019d be completely lying,\u201d Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hoped that he would have some on-field impact, but we were really clear with him that the biggest influence we wanted him to have was we wanted him to support this young group.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur midfield is quite an eclectic group and you put all the names up without Gunners and you don\u2019t know what you\u2019re going to get sometimes two years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, the level of consistency from all those other players comes from the leadership of him and Luke Breust, who\u2019s not performing on the field at the moment but he\u2019s still having a massive influence.<\/p>\n

Joey: “I would love Merrett to stay” | 02:32<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat (Gunston) has done on the field has always been considered as a bonus and it\u2019s certainly beyond what I thought he\u2019d be capable of and I think what he thought he\u2019d be capable of.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut full credit to him and the medical team for getting him as fit and as good as he\u2019s been.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell made headlines for his meeting with Essendon skipper Zach Merrett <\/a>in the lead-up to the game, but the coach was unapologetic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to get into any details, but \u2026 I couldn\u2019t have prepared any better for this game is what I would say,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy job is to win as many games as I possibly can as the coach of this club and to improve this club in any way I see fit so I will continue to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reacting to Mitchell\u2019s comments regarding Merrett, Fox Footy\u2019s Gerard Whately described him as \u201cunrepentant\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe just does not care about those who think it\u2019s the wrong thing to do,\u201d Whately said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An ecstatic Sam Mitchell felt Hawthorn\u2019s barnstorming win over Adelaide exorcised some demons the Hawks had at Adelaide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,689,55,639,95040,1818,92522,95038,95037,95036,42251,7492,12102,19100,95042,3465,39211,92526,677,95035,6082,95041,19095,668,12936,95043,27509,95044,1124,85,95039,25581],"class_list":["post-138499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-bogey-venue","tag-david-king","tag-desk-discuess","tag-eclectic-group","tag-evergreen-veteran","tag-gerard-whately","tag-hawks-coach","tag-hawthorn-hawks","tag-jack-gunston","tag-jai-newcombe","tag-jason-phelan","tag-leigh-montagna","tag-luke-breust","tag-merrett-trade","tag-oceania","tag-on-field-impact","tag-port-adelaide","tag-prelim-weekend","tag-preliminary-final","tag-press-conference","tag-sam-mitchell","tag-season-ending-semi-final-heartbreaker","tag-semi-final","tag-semi-final-result","tag-south-australia","tag-sports","tag-young-group","tag-zach-merrett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138499","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=138499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}