{"id":148963,"date":"2025-09-17T04:45:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T04:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/148963\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T04:45:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T04:45:08","slug":"hawks-afl-coach-sam-mitchell-reacts-to-speculation-over-zach-merrett-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/148963\/","title":{"rendered":"Hawks AFL coach Sam Mitchell reacts to speculation over Zach Merrett meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell has brushed off commentary around the Hawks’ pursuit of Essendon captain Zach Merrett, bluntly noting it is a fact of AFL life.<\/p>\n

Mitchell met with Merrett last week<\/a>, three days out from the Hawks’ semifinal against the Adelaide Crows, with the news having blindsided Essendon.<\/p>\n

Hawthorn and Essendon have one of the fiercest rivalries in the AFL, and Mitchell, in particular, stirs strong emotions among Bombers fans.<\/p>\n

‘The gloves are off’: Zach Merrett’s secret meeting a chance for Essendon to get ruthless again<\/a><\/p>\n

Essendon has gone from an AFL powerhouse to a cellar-dweller due to its inability to make tough decisions over the last two decades, and now its captain has offered the club a chance to flip the script.<\/p>\n

Since the revelation about Merrett looking at a trade to Hawthorn, there has been much speculation in the media about the meeting with Mitchell.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Mitchell also met with West Coast captain Oscar Allen, who is now headed to the Brisbane Lions.<\/p>\n

“It sits fine,” Mitchell said of the fallout from the news about his meeting with Merrett.<\/p>\n

“I have a clear job to do and I’m very focused on making Hawthorn the best club it can be for now, first and foremost.<\/p>\n

“But we have a whole bunch of people who are working pretty hard to make sure the future Hawthorn version is pretty good as well.”<\/p>\n

The Merrett situation also led to more talk about how close Mitchell came to leaving Hawthorn and joining Essendon after the 2011 season, when he was having struggles at the Hawks.<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

Sam Mitchell says his role as coach is to make sure the Hawks reach their potential. (Getty Images: Robert Cianflone)<\/p>\n

“I’m pretty pleased I stayed at Hawthorn, we had a fair bit of success [after] that,” said Mitchell, who helped the Hawks win three consecutive flags between 2013-15.<\/p>\n

“It all worked out fine. It’s this time of year, isn’t it?<\/p>\n

“I’ve read there are probably 10 to 12 players whose names are getting pushed around.<\/p>\n

“There’s lots of talk \u2026 that’s how it works, that’s what happens, and we happen to be at the middle of a couple of those stories. But we’re also on the [periphery] of plenty of others.”<\/p>\n

Mitchell said he would not be surprised if some of his players were talking with rival clubs.<\/p>\n

“I can’t imagine we don’t have some contracted players who are meeting with other clubs,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I wish they wouldn’t. I wish we could meet everyone else’s, and no-one could meet ours.<\/p>\n

“But that’s not the reality \u2026 that’s the world we live in.”<\/p>\n

Hawks ‘healthy’ ahead of Cats clash<\/p>\n

The Hawks were given a major boost ahead of their blockbuster preliminary final against Geelong, with a trio of key players cleared of injury.<\/p>\n

Jack Gunston, Jack Ginnivan and Jarman Impey were all under an injury cloud following the 34-point win over the Crows in Adelaide last Friday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Jack<\/p>\n

Jack Gunston (left) will take his place in the Hawks line-up against the Cats. (Getty Images: James Wiltshire)<\/p>\n

But Mitchell said the trio would play against the Cats on Friday night at the MCG.<\/p>\n

“Everyone’s healthy”, he said.<\/p>\n

“Gunners (Gunston) doesn’t train that much anyway. I don’t know exactly what he’s doing, but I don’t imagine he’s doing everything.”<\/p>\n

The Hawks have come from eighth to make the preliminary final, while the Cats enjoyed the week off after their emphatic qualifying final win over the Lions.<\/p>\n

AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell has brushed off commentary around the Hawks’ pursuit of Essendon captain Zach Merrett, bluntly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148964,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[3443,638,64,63,55,639,21452,2475,6092,3028,16308,13658,16118,6854,74197,12936,85,25581],"class_list":{"0":"post-148963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-adelaide","9":"tag-afl","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australian-football-league","13":"tag-australianfootballleague","14":"tag-bombers","15":"tag-cats","16":"tag-crows","17":"tag-essendon","18":"tag-finals","19":"tag-geelong","20":"tag-hawks","21":"tag-hawthorn","22":"tag-preliminary-finals","23":"tag-sam-mitchell","24":"tag-sports","25":"tag-zach-merrett"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148963","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=148963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}