Sam Mitchell's staggering rise with Hawthorn after pre-season ordeal during family holiday
The Hawks coach has done a remarkable job considering the awful way his year started.
Sam Mitchell has taken Hawthorn from the doldrums of the AFL to put them on the cusp of a staggering finals berth. The Hawks are arguably the hottest team in the competition right now, and some pundits have labelled them a smokey to be there on grand final day.
Mitchell has done a remarkable job as coach - and it's all the more remarkable considering the ordeal he went through in the off-season. His third season as coach of the Hawks couldn't have started any worse after he was hospitalised with pneumonia over Christmas while on holiday with his wife and kids in New York.
He spent Christmas Day in hospital and couldn't make it back to Australia in time for the start of the pre-season. Even when he did get back home he was put on a limited schedule and eased back into his workload as coach, meaning the Hawks players didn't have him around at training as much as usual.
Hawthorn's GM of Football Rob McCartney revealed that Mitchell's wife Lyndall had done an "amazing" job caring for him during the ordeal, after he collapsed at their hotel. Then-West Coast coach Adam Simpson happened to be in New York at the time and helped out looking after Mitchell's three kids.
Can Hawthorn go all the way to the AFL premiership?
Considering how affected their pre-season was, the Hawks' rise into the AFL top-eight is nothing short of remarkable. Mitchell had only won 15 of the 45 games he coached before the 2024 season, which saw Hawthorn finish towards the bottom of the ladder in 2022 and 2023.
But he's led them to a 12-9 record so far in 2024, putting them in eighth place with two games until the finals. The Hawks play Richmond (last) and North Melbourne (second last) to round out the regular season, which should result in two wins and a spot in the finals for the first time since 2018.
“I think they're the best team in it right now. I think they’re the AFL’s best team right now," Port Adelaide great Kane Cornes said on SEN radio this week. “They’re the most consistent, high-performing team for the longest stretch and they have the best form line of any team in it since about Round 8."
While Cornes said he doesn't think the Hawks can go all the way to the flag, fellow pundit Brad Johnson disagreed. "Can they win it? No," Cornes said. "Every game has so much riding on it, you can’t afford a slip-up because of the slow start. To this point, it hasn't phased them. Take out the Geelong game and their performance has been really good. Their performances have been really consistent, but there's going to be a slip-up. When it gets cut-throat, you can't have a slip-up.”
But Western Bulldogs great Johnson countered: “I think they can. I think they're on a roll and their confidence is so high at the moment that they need 18 of the 23 to play well every week from here on in. I think they're good enough to be able to do that and reach it.”
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Sam Mitchell and Hawthorn not getting complacent
Despite how well they're travelling, Mitchell isn't taking anything for granted. "We've been exactly where Richmond are not too long ago (after starting the season 0-5)," Mitchell said on Wednesday.
"We know that they'll go into this game believing that their best is going to really challenge us and can get them a win. Now the challenge is, in a game that most people would expect us to win, can we continue to perform the things that have got us to this point? And if we can't, then we don't deserve to be there anyway."
