BROWNLOW Medal fancy Jaeger O'Meara will enter the season without the "anxiety and fear" that once plagued him after his long battle with knee injuries. 

O'Meara, who was elevated into Hawthorn's leadership group in February for the first time, capped his impressive pre-season with an outstanding performance against Richmond two weekends ago.

That 35-disposal outing in the JLT Community Series convinced two club captains to pick him as this year's Brownlow medallist, one season after his injured teammate Tom Mitchell won the honour.

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Mitchell (broken leg) could miss the entire season, leaving O'Meara to spearhead the Hawks' new-look midfield.

"It's nice, it's humbling, but I'm not really focused on that," O'Meara told reporters at Waverley Park on Tuesday of the Brownlow talk.

"It's more about playing finals footy for me. I want to do that and that will be our aim again this year, as it is every year – to try and get that top-four position and go from there.

"Obviously, it starts this week with our first round (against the Crows in Adelaide) and it's not the Grand Final, but everyone's bloody excited to play footy again, so I can't wait for Saturday."

O'Meara's 21 matches last season were his most since five years ago when he was at Gold Coast. The former Sun didn’t make an AFL appearance in 2015 or 2016 and managed only six in his first campaign with Hawthorn.

He was sporting strapping on his right knee on Tuesday and said that would continue now the season had arrived, but he no longer thinks about the issue that previously threatened his career.

O'Meara has now completed three consecutive pre-seasons, albeit with a missed or reduced session here and there to make sure he gets through.

The most encouraging aspect for him is he is free of the mental demons that used to haunt him ahead of matches in the early stages of his comeback.

"Probably, initially, when I was first coming back from the injury, I might have had a little bit of anxiety and fear I had to get over," O'Meara said.

"The only way to do that was to actually play footy again. I feel like I'm past that now and I can just focus primarily on football and my role for the team, so it's not really in the back of my mind anymore.

"Obviously, I still have to monitor it, but I'm not thinking about it on game day."

O'Meara repeated the stance he discussed with AFL.com.au after a strong intraclub display in mid-February, that it would take a "collective effort" to replace his housemate Mitchell.

James Worpel and James Cousins have emerged as big improvers over the summer and are set to assume greater responsibility, but O'Meara becomes the undoubted No.1 man in the middle.

Hard-running wingman Tom Scully is also on track to play in the first six weeks of the season.

"I don't think there's any more added pressure," he said.

"Tom's obviously a special player and he's last year's Brownlow medallist, so it's not going to be easy to fill that role, but I think it's going to be a collective effort.

"It's not going to be one bloke who steps up and does that … if (others) can increase by 10 to 15 per cent each, then that collective effort will do that for us."

O'Meara again addressed the speculation about his best mate and coveted free agent Stephen Coniglio's contract status.

The Hawks are understood to be one of Coniglio's greatest admirers.

"I haven't really spoken to him a whole lot about it. That'll be his decision," O'Meara said.

"If he wants to chat to me about it, then he can come to me and he knows the door's open for him.

"But I think that will be up to him and his family and whatever's best for them, so I'll leave him to make that decision."