SAM Mitchell has played down any under-the-radar recruiting mission for Harley Reid, after photos surfaced of the Hawks coach seated next to the West Coast young gun at Tom Barrass' wedding last weekend.

Mitchell, who finished his career playing alongside Barrass for a season at the Eagles in 2017 before being an assistant coach at the club, was pivotal in luring the key defender to Hawthorn last off-season in one of the major moves of the trade period.

Pictures published in the WA media of Mitchell sitting with Reid last weekend and sparked debate in the west about the Hawks beginning to plot another recruiting mission. But the four-time premiership Hawk said Reid, who has yet to extend his initial contract at the Eagles beyond 2026, was one of many West Coast representatives he chatted to on the night.

"There was a lot of West Coast people there and I know a lot has been made of the Harley Reid photo, but there was a lot of West Coast players there and guys I played with and coached over there and I spent a lot of time with those guys," Mitchell told AFL.com.au's Your Coach podcast series.

"The scrutiny in Perth that goes onto Harley is difficult for the kid because there could've been photos of me with Jeremy McGovern or Dom Sheed or Tom Cole or Jamie Cripps or whoever else. So I think the fact that it's just Harley all the time makes it tough.

"I'm a bit like everyone else – I love watching him play and I just hope he has a great year for West Coast."

Mitchell said Barrass hadn't purposely placed his new coach next to the in-demand rising star or that there was any request to be in close quarters with Reid, who has Victorian clubs already prepared to offer mega deals to try prise him out of Perth and back to his home state.

"No, there was nothing like that. The table arrangements ... if you said ,'Who were you sitting with?' and it wasn't the media furore, I'd have said I sat with Will Schofield and Josh Kennedy, and Tommy Cole was probably the person closest to us," he said.

"That was probably the main group that we spoke to, but obviously they're of less public interest, it seems.

"There was a whole range of us sitting together and like all weddings, you end up moving around and sitting with lots of different people. I spent a little bit of time with Harley, I don't know him well, but I spent certainly more time with other West Coast Eagles people.

"There was a lot of people there, I spent a lot of time with guys I played with and coached with, and certainly spent more time with them than I did with Harley.

"Overall, he's a very good young player and I just hope he has a really good year. I love watching him play. He's exciting to watch and I just hope he has a good year for West Coast."

The fourth-year coach supported the Indigenous All Stars coaching panel whilst in Perth, along with Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin, who also made the trip west for the game against Fremantle.

Under Mitchell the Hawks have been aggressive in their list strategy, making severe cuts at the end of 2022 before adding four players – Jack Ginnivan, Mabior Chol, Massimo D'Ambrosio and regaining Jack Gunston – at the end of 2023. The quartet were all important in Hawthorn's rise back into the finals last season, with the club winning its first final since 2015 with smashing of the Western Bulldogs.

Their run was cut short by Port Adelaide in the semi-final, but the performances once again made Hawthorn a destination club, with Barrass joining as a trade and St Kilda's Josh Battle as a free agent.

Mitchell said the Hawks going against the grain initially with their rebuild and jettisoning experienced players had allowed them to find an edge when there were fewer clubs in that list mode.

"Rebuilding and challenging the status quo of the competition was the right way to go about it. There weren't too many other clubs that were doing it at the time. So that gave us a bit of a leg up, because we weren't competing with other rebuilding clubs so we were able to get into the draft a little bit and get some talent through the doors," he said.

"(Football boss) Rob McCartney and (CEO) Ash Klein have done a great job with the consistency of the strategic plan and seeing it through from the start. When your CEO, your footy manager, your board are quite consistent in the strategic plan, it's my job to execute that along with the recruiting department.

"We don't feel like we've seen it all the way through at this point, of course, but we've really stuck to it despite some criticism along the way. We kept that on the outside ... we've seen a little bit of the fruit of the labour, but we don't by any stretch think we're a finished product. We've got an enormous amount of work to do."

AFL.com.au's full interview with Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell will soon be uploaded to the Your Coach podcast feed. Subscribe now to hear from your club's coach ahead of the 2025 AFL season.