HAWTHORN coach Sam Mitchell is set to return to the club on Thursday ahead of Sunday's game against West Coast at University of Tasmania Stadium, after missing the early part of the week due to a positive COVID-19 test. 

The second-year coach started experiencing symptoms during the loss to Melbourne at the MCG last Saturday and has been absent from the program since then.

Mitchell will return to Waverley Park for Thursday's main training session following days of public debate after details emerged of a presentation North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson made to the AFL Academy squad last Thursday night. 

Clarkson addressed the best underage talent in the country ahead of their game against Carlton's VFL side, with interpretations of the sentiment of the four-time Hawthorn premiership coach's speech and references of Mitchell and his early Grand Final record varying.

Mitchell is expected to address those comments at his weekly press conference on Thursday morning, but Hawthorn head of football Rob McCartney said the club was thrilled with the way the coach has handled his business during another challenging moment in the early stages of his coaching career.  

"What I've been extremely proud of is Sam has this ability to rise above the external narrative, which would be really easy to be drawn into when it's quite direct towards you. I think he has had to do that in his first 18 months of coaching a few times," McCartney told AFL.com.au on Wednesday. 

"His steely focus is on what is most important – and that is his coaching and the development of our playing group – I think is one of the reasons why we remain so buoyant about our future on-field success."

Despite the ongoing commentary involving two of the key figures in Hawthorn's four most recent premierships and the spectre of the racism investigation that shows no indication of being resolved soon, McCartney said the off-field drama hasn't taken its toll on Mitchell. 

"I think a person other than Sam would possibly have struggled with some of this, but I think Sam has this unique ability to compartmentalise things in a manner that allows him to get things done that are most important," he said. 

"I think about some of the challenges he had as a player and he was still able to perform, but I've actually seen the same thing as a coach. We become a bit immune to thinking this is just how Sam is, but it is amazing that he has been able to handle all this and I'm not seeing that changing."

Hawthorn won its first two games under Mitchell's watch in 2022 and four of five in the second half of the year, finishing 8-14 to exceed external expectations, before the clear signs of a rebuild became evident when the club traded away Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O'Meara and lost Jack Gunston through free agency in October after choosing not to offer new deals to elder statesmen like Liam Shiels. 

McCartney said Mitchell and the club hadn't lost any confidence in the direction of the bold rebuild, despite the Hawks struggling for consistent efforts across the first nine rounds, only beating North Melbourne in round three around an average losing margin of 47.4 points.

"Having a bigger picture view, which he definitely has, means he has a real understanding of what the plan is and what's required to get there and what will possibly happen throughout the journey," he said. 

"He was understanding that investing back in our youth, developing that group, embedding a new gameplan was going to take some time and you would see moments in games where you got pretty excited about the growth and you'd also see in that part of the journey times where you've stumbled either within a quarter or week to week.

"He was very aware that that was going to take place because of the direction we've taken to get games into a young group. In those circumstances, I think he is quite ready for what does present. The other thing that allows him to work his way through this is he is quite a calculated problem solver, so he actually enjoys the creative challenges the game provided him as a player initially and now as a coach. He actually thrives on the challenges and I think he gets energy from this phase that he is actually creating and building something. 

"He is relentless in his determination to get things right and he is actually sharing that with his playing group. While they are not able to turn that learning into winning games yet, what they are able to do is turn that learning into improved performances in parts of the game. He is getting his cup filled from those moments, not from wins yet."

Hawthorn will start as favourite in this weekend's clash against wooden spoon contender West Coast in Launceston, where the narrative has been fixated on the race for the No.1 pick in recent months. The Eagles are the only other club to register just one win ahead of round 10.