Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Libraries Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Blog Pricing
Podcast Image

SEN Breakfast

Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell (19.06.26)

18 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.031 - 11.746 Nacho Ares

Say yes, IDD, to going out after the game. Unlock your warehouse's potential with the latest innovations from Dexian. Switch to a Kogan Mobile low-price phone plan. Kogan.com. Clickin' awesome.

0

12.027 - 13.171 David King

Kane and King.

0

13.191 - 13.652 Nacho Ares

Fire.

0

17.429 - 40.742 David King

Thanks for your company on Fireball. A big last hour coming up. Headlined by our next guest is the coach of the Hawks for Club Tokemoor, Australia's premier Murray River golfing destination. Two changes for them. Barris comes back, a huge in for them. Harry Morrison also not as big, to be fair. Perez and Bodie Ryan, my man, left out. Sam Mitchell joins us. Mitch, thanks for your time.

0

41.703 - 63.78 Sam Mitchell

Yes, thanks for having me on. I must admit I woke up This morning, very excited to talk with you guys, but then I started reading and hearing about the Tony Modros situation and dropped the heart a little bit. So thoughts of love go to him and family and everyone at Adelaide and And Frio grew up watching him take hangers all the time. Sad moment for us.

63.801 - 82.84 David King

Yeah, well said, well said. And we sort of echoed your thoughts off the top of the program as well. Any updates, we will provide that as they come to hand throughout the day on SEN. Mitch, we'll have to get back to footy because it's what we do. You spent the bye week. How did you spend it and how have you assessed the first portion of your season?

84.018 - 106.811 Sam Mitchell

Um, yeah, I had a, had a few days off, had a bit of a relax, which was, which was nice. Um, spent a bit of time trying to catch up with, you know, Marcus, I'm actually gone, but they wouldn't return my calls, unfortunately. So it was a bit quiet in that, on that front. Um, but no, we catch up with Ben King. No, just all the captains, just after all the captains, that's my reputation.

106.831 - 125.581 Sam Mitchell

I'll just keep going after all of them. Um, the, the, The first half of the season, when we look at it and think we haven't played fantastic footy, you look at the latter and think we're not in too bad a position. Not as good as we could have been with a couple of missed opportunities over our last six weeks. We feel like we're okay.

125.742 - 129.606 Sam Mitchell

We're not flying, but we haven't put ourselves too far behind the eight ball either.

Chapter 2: How did Sam Mitchell spend the bye week?

311.708 - 318.657 Sam Mitchell

I think he's probably unlikely for next week and more likely the week after. But it's been a bit unpredictable, which is frustrating for him.

0

319.137 - 327.408 David King

Yeah, Barris is back. What does that mean for Weddle? Because I've kind of really liked him in that position across halfback that he settled down when Tom wasn't there.

0

329.13 - 349.787 Sam Mitchell

Yeah, I mean, we've probably been a little bit small in our back half since Tom's gone out of the side. And with Jack Strimshaw being injured as well, we haven't had... perhaps with flexibility with those tools that we would normally have. So Weds will spend the majority of his time and certainly start the game as a defender. And how we go after that will be through the game.

0

349.807 - 352.873 Sam Mitchell

We can make some adjustments, but he'll start the game as a defender.

0

354.102 - 376.633 Nacho Ares

Just getting back to the overall look, Mitch, it's a tough year. You look at Fremantle and Sydney have sort of put a bit of a margin on the rest. And we all expected yourselves, probably the Adelaide Crows, Brisbane, the Dogs, Geelong, all to be in that next mix of sort of four or five teams. But the gap's larger than I think anyone could have predicted.

376.613 - 384.985 Nacho Ares

Not that you're disappointed, but are you surprised that right now Hawthorne are a fair way off those top two or three teams?

387.047 - 404.832 Sam Mitchell

I mean, there's a part of me that looks at that and thinks, a big part of what we wanted to achieve this season when we looked at our last couple of years is that we, in general, we were pretty good and we beat, most of the games you think a Hawthorne should win that, we did win, but we just weren't good enough to beat the best side. So I think this year,

405.25 - 428.293 Sam Mitchell

If you look at the ladder, you know, we lost to Freo just with a late run from them. We've beaten Sydney and we've beaten Geelong. So, yeah, we would say that we've actually competed against the best teams in a slightly better manner. But, you know, we lost to Melbourne. So we've been against the top end. We've been sort of thereabouts. I think that's been an improvement for us.

428.373 - 432.878 Sam Mitchell

Are we as good as Freo and Sydney right now? Well, the ladder tells you the story and that's it.

Chapter 3: What is Sam Mitchell's assessment of the first half of the season?

478.507 - 497.29 Sam Mitchell

His first six, probably not. So is that good enough to get you onto that wing spot? You know, potentially. It depends how he goes in the second half of the year. I mean, the obvious one who, if you watch all of our games, Jarman Impey would have to be an All-Australian right now. And I haven't probably seen him in as many sides as I would like. I think if you watch Hawthorne games...

0

497.877 - 513.793 Sam Mitchell

he would be the first name you put in the team. And you probably, if you watch this enough, you don't ever take him out. I think he just locks into one of those back six spots. Defensively and offensively, if you look at his statistics, he's surrounded by players that are half a foot taller than him with all his intercept marks, intercept possessions.

0

513.993 - 527.935 Sam Mitchell

I think James Sisley's probably around the 40 mark. You know, he's had a really consistent year. I don't know if he'd make the actual team right now without... I think if he has a couple of those really big games he's capable of in the second half, then he'd be closer. And then the other one, depending on...

0

528.387 - 545.528 Sam Mitchell

If you like defense as part of your midfield, I think Jai Newcombe's been a really high-level player on both sides of the ball. They seem to only reward one side of the offensive side of the ball. But I think Jai's consistency, offense and defense, is first class.

0

545.589 - 549.133 Nacho Ares

He'll be a shift this year, Mitch. There's been a couple of big omissions off the panel.

549.153 - 554.319 David King

There's a whack. I think the wizard picks himself as well, Mitch. You haven't done a great job of it.

554.339 - 556.662 Sam Mitchell

I didn't. I didn't feel like I needed to.

556.682 - 557.703 David King

Fair enough.

557.923 - 572.356 Sam Mitchell

He's in everyone's team. But I think if the Wizard and Jarman, I think they're the two that you would think they should be in the team. And obviously it depends how high we finish on the ladder. The higher you go, the more you get. I know you don't say it's not like that, Cain, but it does work like that.

Chapter 4: What challenges is Hawthorn facing in their game strategy?

696.391 - 713.088 Sam Mitchell

But I think it's not too dissimilar to a player. Obviously, for them, it's a much more physical feeling. But, you know, when they have – they feel like they're just banging out games week after week after week. But when they have a week off, they come into the club and they're like, oh, wow, gee, I feel lighter. I'm running better. And, gee, not everything feels as hard.

0

713.248 - 727.909 Sam Mitchell

And so I think all of the staff – you know, we gave all of our staff sort of five – five or six days off, so I'm really pleased that everyone sort of took that and feels refreshed and, you know, we're... But then you've got to get the rubber back on the road pretty quickly when you play the suns up here.

0

728.95 - 749.7 David King

All right. It's a big one, Friday night footy, and we cannot wait for it. Appreciate you joining us. Good luck. Go well. No worries. Thanks for having me on. Have a good call. See you guys. Sam Mitchell speaking to us pretty honestly about, well, where the Hawks are at this year. Who do you like in this game? You've got a feel on this one? Genuine sort of... 50-50 feels like it doesn't it?

0

749.74 - 778.174 Nacho Ares

I feel like it's a bad time to play the Suns they've just been roasted for five days absolutely we've been waiting for that response though from the Sun for a while now and it hasn't yet come so it's a huge game I mean the fallout for the losers is big isn't it because you just lose a little bit of touch with top four and it makes it very difficult to win the flag we're not interested in these two teams making finals it's winning the whole thing and

0

778.458 - 786.358 David King

This is Fireball for Kogan. Switch to a Kogan mobile, low-priced phone plan. Kogan.com is clicking awesome. That was Sam Mitchell. Up next, the agenda.

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.