Mitchell had a plate inserted into his broken hand after the Hawks' fighting win over the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium in round 14, and Hawthorn forward Jarryd Roughead expects the 2008 premiership captain to return for Saturday's clash with the Brisbane Lions at Aurora Stadium.
"He's moving around fine - I think he did a running session this morning, so obviously later in the week he might do a couple of ball sessions, and hopefully he'll be right for Saturday," Roughead said of Mitchell at the Hawks' Waverley Park headquarters on Monday morning.
"Any club would say it's great having your skipper [out there].
"He hasn't missed many games over the past four or five years. He's just a real general there in the midfield and controls all the boys around the stoppages, which is what you want."
Roughead's fellow key forward Lance Franklin is again under scrutiny after a high tackle on Geelong's Tom Lonergan that drew a free kick in Saturday's loss to the Cats. While the match review panel is likely to look at the incident, Roughead believes the Hawks' spearhead is in no danger of a suspension.
"It's just the fact that he's tall and big, and I think he even wears some oil on his arms, so it might slip up into bloke's heads," Roughead said.
"I wouldn't be too concerned with it."
The Hawks had won seven on the trot before the two-point loss to Geelong, and Richmond did the Hawks and the Dogs a favour on Saturday night by knocking off fourth-placed Fremantle in a stunning upset.
Roughead said the side couldn't concern itself with a top-four finish, with the Hawks needing to focus on winning enough games to secure a spot in the eight after a terrible start to the season.
"In the last couple of weeks we've proven that we can match it with the top four sides, and obviously on the weekend it didn't quite get there, but (there were) some good signs for the group," he said.
"Our goal is still to play finals footy. That's always been the goal from the start of the year, so we need to keep winning games. We're just trying to concentrate on winning as many as we can over the next few weeks.
"We've just got to keep improving, week in, week out."
