HAWTHORN fully committed to a rebuild in the trade period, sending veterans Tom Mitchell, Jaeger O\u2019Meara and Jack Gunston to rival clubs.<\/p>\n
With the club also losing Ben McEvoy and Liam Shiels to retirement, Sam Mitchell is set to take charge of a new-look team in his second season in charge.<\/p>\n
While some clubs are looking to trade for and retain older players, AFL Media\u2019s Cal Twomey said the Hawks have taken a different approach as they opted to cut their list deep after failing to do so last off-season.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose decisions at the Hawthorn Football Club have been very different,\u201d Twomey said on SEN\u2019s Sportsday<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe saw that throughout the trade period, Ben McEvoy retires, Jaeger O\u2019Meara and Tom Mitchell depart and Jack Gunston leaves for the Brisbane Lions.<\/p>\n \u201cNow I\u2019m not sure if the plan originally would have been to lose all of that experience in one hit.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they would have liked to have separate those losses across the years, they moved late last year but other clubs didn\u2019t have enough cap space to make some of those decisions \u2013 but now they\u2019ve done that.\u201d<\/p>\n While the Hawks made the call to shake up their list, Twomey believes they were beginning to trend in an upwards direction last season as several young players began to make names for themselves.<\/p>\n \u201cI think their progress in 2022 was strong,\u201d Twomey said.<\/p>\n \u201cEight wins, one more than the year before, they played a different style and we saw some young players take responsibility in that line-up.<\/p>\n \u201cDylan Moore was one of those examples\u2026 Will Day had his injuries but everyone is aware of what he can do, Finn Maginness they found a role for\u2026 Josh Ward and Connor MacDonald in their first years were exciting.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve got a young key position we\u2019re starting to see bits of in Denver Grainger-Barrass.<\/p>\n \u201cMitch Lewis, I spoke to him earlier in the season when he was starting to pop as a key forward\u2026 he was embracing the game style.<\/p>\n \u201cAll those things started to add up.\u201d<\/p>\n After winning eight games in 2022, Twomey can\u2019t see the Hawks reaching that mark again given the wealth of experience they\u2019ll be without.<\/p>\n Despite this, he doesn\u2019t feel that\u2019s a negative in the long-term as the Hawks look to reboot for future finals success.<\/p>\n \u201cBut they made some aggressive list calls,\u201d Twomey said.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re going to be a fascinating watch for me at the back end of the ladder.<\/p>\n \u201cBut what\u2019s a good year for them? I don\u2019t think they\u2019re hitting eight wins next year, but is that necessarily a bad thing? I don\u2019t think so.\u201d<\/p>\n Hawthorn finished 13th in Mitchell\u2019s first year at the helm, ending 2022 with an 8-14, win-loss record.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n