{"id":656444,"date":"2026-05-07T22:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656444\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T22:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:44:13","slug":"sam-mitchell-round-press-conference-hawthorn-hawks-loss-to-fremantle-dockers-jack-gunston-six-goals-interview-reaction-latest-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/656444\/","title":{"rendered":"Sam Mitchell Round press conference, Hawthorn Hawks loss to Fremantle Dockers, Jack Gunston six goals, interview, reaction, latest news"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell said his Hawks learned that they won\u2019t get away with playing less than 120 minutes against the top sides in the competition.<\/p>\n<p>The Hawks lost just their second game for the season on Thursday night, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com.au\/afl\/live-afl-2026-fremantle-dockers-vs-hawthorn-hawks-round-9-live-scores-and-stats-updates-and-blog-start-time-aest-and-how-to-watch-video-highlights\/news-story\/da133d27280884ae45717a28efb16d29\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">going down to Fremantle by 15 points.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Watch every match of every round of the AFL Premiership Season LIVE and ad-break free during play on FOX FOOTY, available on Kayo Sports | New to Kayo? <a href=\"https:\/\/kayosports.com.au\/en-AU\/welcome\/afl?pg=default&amp;extcamp=fsaeditoriallinkafl-edt-fsp-lnk-awr-grc-afl-kyo&amp;channel=fsa&amp;campaign=fsacontra&amp;voucher=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776909012_441_poster-fallback.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>After a close start, Mitchell\u2019s team took control of the game in the second quarter and led by 22 points late in the third term.<\/p>\n<p>However, led by Caleb Serong and Luke Jackson, the Dockers controlled the last quarter, restricting the Hawks to just four clearances and four entries into their attack. Fremantle outscored Hawthorn 5.6 to 1.0 in that last term. <\/p>\n<p>Mitchell admits that letting the opposition take control of centre bounces had become a worrying trend.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have had periods across the season, not last quarters, necessarily, but we\u2019ve had periods where we\u2019ve lost control of games, and we\u2019ve had big runs of centre bounce against,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo centre bounce, if you look at our season numbers, they\u2019ll be okay. But we have had runs of centre bounce against, and that\u2019s been a bit of an issue, and certainly reared its head tonight at the worst time.<\/p>\n<p>Hawks get away with questionable sub! | 00:35<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knew coming here to play against a side that\u2019s fighting for the similar spots on the ladder that we are, we knew we were going to be up against it, and we were going to have to have to play 120 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately, 90 won\u2019t get it done against the Dockers. And we learned that lesson.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHit us right in the face, to be fair.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hawthorn has been involved in a few close games this season already. The Hawks beat Geelong by one point in round 4 and Port Adelaide by three points in Round 6.<\/p>\n<p>But in the past two weeks, including Thursday\u2019s loss to Fremantle, they haven\u2019t been able to claim wins, having walked away with a draw against Collingwood last week.<\/p>\n<p>Jack Gunston, who had kicked five goals in the first half against the Dockers, kicked a sixth in the last quarter, but only managed two disposals. Nick Watson had only one.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Massive loss!&#8217;: Tom Barrass goes down | 00:44<\/p>\n<p>The Dockers eight more clearances in the final term, and 19 more inside 50 entries. The only Hawks players that got to 10 possessions in the final quarter were defenders Josh Battle, James Sicily and Karl Amon.<\/p>\n<p>Mitchell said his side went away from the way they wanted to play.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve been involved in a lot of close games so far this year, and we weren\u2019t good enough tonight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re working a little bit of our method around what we need to do late in games, but also the mentality of the moment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe went away from a few things that we were meant to be doing across that last 15 minutes of the game. These are things that are going to cost us big games, and we shot ourselves in the foot with the way we set the game up tonight, late in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell said his Hawks learned that they won\u2019t get away with playing less than 120&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,689,55,639,13120,3234,234380,317111,253329,12090,7483,10124,4517,20778,7492,12102,69830,15626,25874,3530,677,6082,668,12936,317395,1124,85,69078,317396],"class_list":["post-656444","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-centre-bounce","tag-centre-bounces","tag-close-games","tag-dominant-finish","tag-emphatic-win","tag-final-quarter","tag-final-term","tag-fremantle-dockers","tag-hamstring-injury","tag-hawthorn-coach","tag-hawthorn-hawks","tag-jack-gunston","tag-karl-amon","tag-luke-jackson","tag-michael-frederick","tag-nick-watson","tag-oceania","tag-port-adelaide","tag-press-conference","tag-sam-mitchell","tag-season-numbers","tag-south-australia","tag-sports","tag-tom-barrass","tag-top-sides"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656444","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=656444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}