ROSS Lyon used to send Ryan Crowley and Clinton Jones to Sam Mitchell when the Brownlow medallist was playing for Hawthorn. Now the Hawks coach is preparing to face the Saints boss for the first time in the coaches' box.
St Kilda has produced the most surprising rise of any side across the first 10 rounds of 2023, winning seven games to sit just outside the top four on percentage, after making a dramatic coaching change in the off-season.
The Saints are ranked No.2 in the AFL for points against and have conceded more than 80 points only twice this season – and have only conceded 100 points once when they lost to Adelaide in round nine – strangling sides with a defensive system that has them sitting as a finals contender heading into winter.
"I can remember playing against Ross Lyon and sometimes you would call for the ball and think I wonder why they didn't give it to me. You would turn around and there was someone right there. I think defensively they are really sound," Mitchell said on Thursday.
"It's really been quite hard to score against them on turnover for the majority of the year. Having said that we just had our oppo meeting, hopefully we can find ways to exploit them and find ways to score. When they've played well they've blown teams away."
After losing six games in a row and eight of the first nine, Hawthorn produced its best performance of the season last Sunday, smashing West Coast by 116 points at University of Tasmania Stadium to enjoy some reward during a year where development is the focus.
Mitch Lewis got a lick of the ice cream with a career-high six goals and 10 coaches votes, first-round pick Josh Weddle earned a Rising Star nomination, while James Worpel, Conor Nash and Will Day all continued great starts to the season. But now Mitchell wants to see the group replicate that form against a team in contention.
"I wouldn't question the players' morale and energy so far this year; there have been a couple of weeks where we've had to work on it and you had to really focus on the spirit of the group and make sure we're doing a couple of things that are a bit more fun and showing some progress," he said.
"I think this week it was a little bit more natural, we actually got some reward for effort. There are ways to win and I think we played the right manner of football for a long period of time. The challenge for our group is we can play at that level against that team but can we do that against progressively better teams? Pretty good challenge this week against a strongly coached St Kilda outfit. Can we produce a similar level of spirit and football this week against an opponent who are 7-3 rather than 1-8."
Ruckman Ned Reeves is expected to face the Saints at Marvel Stadium on Saturday after being subbed out of the win in Launceston with an ankle injury, following a difficult week for his family after his father Justin stepped down as CEO on Wednesday.
Mitchell said the elder Reeves won't be lost to the club despite his decision to depart the post and will remain involved through as a parent of a player.
"I was getting a lot of texts with Justin and Rob McCartney last night and he was pleasingly in good spirits. I've asked Justin for a long time how to coach his son the best and he would never give me anything. Last night he started talking like a dad and saying he should be doing this, should be doing that," he said.
"Ned said today, 'He is still my dad, he is just not my boss anymore'. I think he was in good spirits about it.
"He is still going to be part of the Hawthorn family. He is still a parent of a player. He is going to go to the footy this weekend and go to all the games and support the club. I hope he is going well."
Hawthorn currently has one pick ahead of Wednesday night's Mid-Season Rookie Draft and could make a second selection after moving Max Lynch to the long-term injury list last week.
The club's alignment with Box Hill has been incredibly fruitful over more than 20 years, with five current Hawks recruited directly from the VFL program via the pre-season supplemental selection period or mid-season draft since 2019.
The Hawks selected James Blanck this time last year after recruiting Jai Newcombe in the middle of 2021, signing Fergus Greene as a delisted free agent in November.
Ryan Maric, Ethan Stanley, Clay Tucker and Will Elliott all trained with the AFL program on Thursday and have done so in recent months, as part of the Box Hill alignment.
Maric and Stanley both produced eye-catching displays against Southport last weekend and are understood to be on Hawthorn's radar ahead of next Wednesday night.
Both are expected to play for Box Hill against Essendon at the Hangar on Sunday and could be Hawthorn players – or in the AFL system – by this time next week.
Former Collingwood midfielder Callum Brown has been a standout in the VFL this year and is another name the Hawks are considering after taking a look at him during the pre-season supplemental selection period, before opting to keep the spot open.
