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What was laid out in Hawthorn’s “scathing” player meeting
Andrew Slevison • June 4th, 2025 10:37 am
Hawthorn players came together for a brutal and scathing meeting in the wake of the club’s disappointing loss to Collingwood.
The Hawks were put to the sword by the rampaging Magpies at the MCG last Friday night, going down by 51 points which was their third defeat on the trot.
To address their recent failings, Will Day took it upon himself to compile lists of the good and the bad in order to help fix the problems plaguing the team at present.
Channel 7’s Mitch Cleary reported what was laid out in the player-led meeting, including stat-padding and self-centredness.
“Injured midfielder Will Day took charge of the meeting on Sunday alongside the skipper (James Sicily),” Cleary said on 7News.
“A scathing assessment of what Day saw from the stands in the capitulation against the Pies. Some home truths delivered in what the Hawks hope is a line in the sand to turn their season around after three straight losses.
“Players were asked to nominate what is and isn’t working in two columns.
“Under what we’re doing that we don’t love, suggestions included stat-padding disposals and a self-centred approach or lack of team-first focus.
“Then under what we love that we’re not doing, players they said need to bring more energy and to celebrate everything including one percenters like smothers and defensive efforts.
“Sam Mitchell observing it all from the back of the room.”
Hawks coach Mitchell was part of the panel on The Agenda Setters on Tuesday night and admitted that a meeting did take place.
“I mean it’s moderately (close),” Mitchell said.
“The thing about Will is he’s not under performance pressure right now because he’s injured so he’s got as much passion and care for us to have success. But he doesn’t have the self-consciousness and the fatigue of actually going and playing all the time.
“So he’s probably the one who has got a bit more time to watch some vision, to drive a bit of standard stuff. Every club every week has got players talking about what they like in the game and what they don’t like in the game.
“The fact that it’s driven by our players is much better than it being driven by coaches. I was really pleased with how they took it.”
Did it get robust?
Mitchell replied: “Yeah, of course. But at the start of the season when we were 4-0 and if you came and saw our review and you said was it robust, I would say yeah.”
Mitchell also revealed he took a group of players to the beach on Sunday into Monday as a team-bonding exercise.
“A few us went away but it was nothing to do with the weekend,” he added.
“I’ve done it before. We trained on Sunday and finished just after lunch time, I was planning on going down to the beach for the night. We had Monday off.
“So I got a few of the guys, we had some dinner and they all stayed in bunk beds and played cards. It was a cross-section of age profile and it wasn’t a big, furious discussion.”
SEN Breakfast’s Tim Watson believes there is enough concern around at the Hawks in order to hold such a meeting.
“I think they’re concerned enough to have a bit of a pow-wow. You can have robust discussions but then sometimes you think you need to have a circuit-breaker or a reset session,” Watson said.
“That is what it appears to me, that’s something more concerning than, ‘Oh we’ve just lost a game here or there, ok let’s try and get to the heart of that’. Which is exactly what you would be doing if you’re in Sam Mitchell’s position.”
Co-host Garry Lyon suggests that they believe enough is enough and they need to act now.
“Yep, they’ve had enough. Will Day has called it and just said, ‘Enough’s enough, I’ve been watching, this is what I’ve seen and I don’t like any of it’,” Lyon said.
“They’ve all got together and then Sam Mitchell said it’s serious enough so let’s get down here and take the leaders and thrash it out.
“This is a pointy response to what has been a really disappointing couple of weeks. I think it’s good and we’ll see what sort of a response we get on Thursday night.”
The Hawks, who now sit sixth with a 7-5 record, will be intent on bouncing back when they take on the ninth-placed Western Bulldogs at Marvel Stadium on Thursday night to kick off Round 13.
Meanwhile, skipper Sicily will be sidelined for two weeks with an abdominal/hip injury.
