{"id":155449,"date":"2025-09-20T00:03:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/155449\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T00:03:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T00:03:10","slug":"afl-hawks-wont-stand-still-as-aggressive-offseason-looms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/155449\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL: Hawks won’t stand still as aggressive offseason looms"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hawthorn cannot afford to stand still and must once again be aggressive in their recruiting to progress beyond their AFL preliminary final exit, coach Sam Mitchell says.<\/p>\n

And Essendon skipper Zach Merrett looms as the man at the top of their shopping list.<\/p>\n

The Hawks followed last year’s breakout run to a semi-final by reaching the final four from eighth place, only to have their hearts broken in a 17.13 (115) to 13.7 (85) loss to Geelong on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Editor’s Picks<\/a><\/p>\n

The young, dynamic Hawks will clearly be favoured to be among the contenders again in 2026 — but Mitchell knows there are no guarantees.<\/p>\n

“The game doesn’t stand still for anyone. If we play exactly as well as we did this year, we probably won’t make the eight next year,” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got work to do, every club. Fifteen clubs now — finished. Everyone’s getting to work on how to improve for next season.<\/p>\n

“We start back at ground zero and we’re gonna have plenty of work to do like every other club.”<\/p>\n

Contracted Essendon star midfielder Merrett looms as the main target, having already met with Mitchell, after Geelong got the better of the young Hawks around stoppages.<\/p>\n

While Mitchell wouldn’t go into depth on Merrett, Hawthorn will clearly be active in the off-season again, having successfully secured Josh Battle and Tom Barrass last year.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it’s any surprise that we’re going to be aggressive in trying to make our list the best it can be – and I think every club’s doing that.” Mitchell said.<\/p>\n

“So I’m not ready for this yet but free agency, the draft, trade period — they’re all ways we can improve our list and we’re going to need to do that. Everyone is.<\/p>\n

Sam Mitchell leaves the field following Hawthorn’s preliminary final loss.\u00a0Photo by Michael Willson\/AFL Photos via Getty Images<\/p>\n

“Even if we’re the same as we are this year, that’s not going to even make the eight next year. The game goes forward every year.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got progress to make and I’m enormously proud of the whole journey. Some of that has been aggressive development, some of it has been aggressive free agency, etc.<\/p>\n

“But the aim isn’t to sit here in the preliminary final week as a loser and say we’ve achieved.<\/p>\n

“I’ve got a level of pride but I also have a level of desperation to go a couple of steps further than this.”<\/p>\n

Mitchell was adamant his players were never “overawed” and showed they could handle the big moments, but Geelong were “just a bit too good” in the end.<\/p>\n

The devastated Hawthorn coach was adamant his players were ready to go again.<\/p>\n

“The one thing I can guarantee all our Hawks fans is they’re willing to work,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I just looked back and saw my own emotion in every player.<\/p>\n

“And so they’re feeling the same pain that I am and they’ll all be ready.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorn cannot afford to stand still and must once again be aggressive in their recruiting to progress beyond…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-155449","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155449","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=155449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}