THEY'RE a happy-ish team at Hawthorn.
Hawks coach Sam Mitchell was pleased – to a degree – with his side's 26-point win over Essendon on Friday night, but says the Hawks still have plenty of improvement left after grinding out a win that included some fantastic flashes and clear areas to get better.
The Hawks went 2-0 to start the season with the MCG victory, but Mitchell said the contest highlighted where his side still needed to get better in its pursuit of going deeper into September than their semi-final exit last year.
HAWKS v BOMBERS Full match coverage and stats
"The story we've thought about is that we've got a fair bit of work to do, but our best is pretty good. We probably saw a bit of both of those things tonight. We lost a lot of statistics that said we shouldn't win that game – we got touched up at clearance, we lost the inside-50 count by 10," Mitchell said post-game.
"We not only lost the contested possession by 20, we also lost the tackles by close to that as well. There's a lot of areas that need attention for us but we were able to kick 111 points and win the game, so that part makes me happy. But some of the underlying stuff we've got some work to do."
Without James Worpel, the Bombers’ midfield, led by Jye Caldwell, was terrific, with Sam Durham and Mason Redman limiting Will Day's influence after his best-on-ground showing last week.
The Hawks' fleet of forwards – they had five multiple goalkickers – managed to find opportunities with a skill level the Bombers couldn't match, but Mitchell said his team had clear things to build early in the year.
"We had some key moments and key players handle those pretty well. Holistically I think Essendon would have had some parts of the game they were pretty happy with. But we had enough of a lead to be able to hold them off and we had some key moments that were important and in seasons like this you're going to have to win some games where you lose some stats, but it's not sustainable to keep winning in that style," he said.
The Hawks lost Jack Scrimshaw through concussion and he will have other facial concerns assessed, while the Bombers also didn't get through unscathed, with Jordan Ridley entering concussion protocols and Kyle Langford straining a hamstring.
Essendon coach Brad Scott said the Hawks' class and polish was a difference between the sides, and praised his team for fighting it out after conceding six goals to one in the first term, but said there was "clearly a gap between the teams".
"They're very good kicks and they sliced us up through the middle at different stages. We sat back off them a little bit too much, particularly in the first quarter, but I was pleased we were able to adjust that and get the game somewhat back on our terms. I thought in the second half we controlled big parts of it and the screen I looked at was flashing green on most metrics but the one I don't look at so much was the scoreboard and that wasn't flashing green," Scott said.
Langford is set to miss multiple weeks with his hamstring injury, with Scott saying the Bombers had options in how they look to replace the forward.
"We have some players I think are playing pretty well at VFL level, but the options open to us are either personnel based or they're structure based," he said.
"[We might have to change things], but that's what you have to do in this competition. We'll just adjust."
