G'day Hawks fans! This week I’m going to cover our NAB Cup campaign.

Our first match against Melbourne was pleasing, considering the Demons are a pretty good team and played finals last year. We thought we competed well and played some exciting footy. We were pleased to get the win.

For the second match against Carlton, we were without 'Browny' (Campbell Brown) and Beau Muston, who had done a great job of returning to full fitness after missing last season with a knee injury. We also lost Rick Ladson before the match with an ankle injury. He had been one of the best trainers over the pre-season.

It was disappointing to not have those three guys, because it left us a little bit thin against Carlton, but it did allow us to introduce Travis Tuck and Garry Moss for their first matches. It just meant we went into the game a little bit skinny for experience.

Considering Carlton was almost at full strength and we were pretty inexperienced, to get within seven points wasn't bad at all. We had our opportunities to win the game, but we didn't quite get there.

We knew we didn't play great footy and there were some really basic things we didn't do very well, as far as our game plan was concerned. So we believe we can get a lot better come round one.

Even though we wanted to progress further in the NAB Cup we've now put the loss behind us. We're not going to beat ourselves up over that defeat.

Two players that attracted attention in the NAB Cup were 'Buddy' Franklin and Tim Boyle.

'Buddy' is going get a lot of attention throughout his career because he stands out, however I think it's important to keep his performances in context, particularly the match against Melbourne.

He kicked four goals in the final quarter, but that was due to the work of our midfielders and defenders, who managed to turn the ball over in our favour. 'Buddy' managed to get on the end of their good work.

We were very mindful that it was a team effort, but we know 'Buddy' is going to create a lot of headlines, because he is such an exciting player and he knows how to kick a goal.

He contributed again against Carlton with three goals and we're hoping that he's going to keep developing and give us a really potent forward line alongside Jarryd Roughead, Mark Williams and Ben Dixon, when he returns. It will give us multiple avenues to goal.

Boyle did everything right against Melbourne, in terms of what we wanted him to achieve, although he didn't get on the end of the footy. But he did give away a couple of goals to teammates in that match, which was pleasing.

On Saturday, Tim was very good. He kicked three goals and really looked like a big, strong, presenting forward, which is fantastic for him and the club. Tim's really starting to look like he's getting back to full fitness and put all of his injury troubles behind him.

And now, from a preparation point of view, the remainder of the pre-season competition gives us a chance to fine tune our plans and put a lot of work into the guys that need it. It's also an opportunity to rest some of the guys that have worked really hard over the pre-season and played early matches.

We've had a couple of good hit-outs now and we've got three weeks to top up our preparation before the first round. So from that side of things, we're in good shape.

This week we're playing Fremantle over in the west and I'd suggest we’ll name a really young team and rest a few guys who have niggling sore spots. If this was the season proper, those players would be playing.

It will be good for the young guys to get another opportunity this weekend in full match conditions, rather than just a taste of it, before the season proper starts.