SEN SA Breakfast co-host Andrew Hayes is “very bullish” about Hawthorn heading into 2022.
The Hawks are coming off a seven-win season last year and are going in a new direction after Sam Mitchell replaced Alastair Clarkson as senior coach.
Hayes believes Hawthorn’s top-end talent is good enough to help them win up to 10 games this season and is excited by Will Day’s potential entering his third season at the club.
“I just look their top-end (talent), it’s really, really good – Tom Mitchell, Chad Wingard, Jaeger O'Meara, Jack Gunston, Luke Breust,” Hayes told SEN SA Breakfast.
“There’s plenty of experienced players who on paper their CVs are just unbelievably elite.
“It feels like they underperformed last year.
“I feel like if you can get Tom Mitchell back to his Brownlow best and the other one is their best and fairest winner from 2020, Jack Gunston, he was injured for pretty much the entirety of 2021. I still feel like he’s gone under the radar in the terms of the attention that he gets – he is a star.
“Who knows what Chad Wingard’s capable of and (James) Sicily is a very, very good player - he’s polarising though in terms of the way he goes about it
“I’ve got them for 10 wins, I’m very bullish about where the Hawks could be this year if their top-end talent does what they’re supposed to do, and you get some solid improvements from blokes you mentioned like Will Day.
“I feel like this year Will Day is going to come into his own. We saw what he’s capable of and it’s enough to suggest that the future looks bright, but he’s one of those players where if he gets a good run at it, his body stays sound, then he can really launch himself.”
Brownlow Medallist Adam Cooney isn’t quite as optimistic about Hawthorn’s hopes and is tipping them to win less games than what they achieved last year.
“I’m not that enthusiastic about Hawthorn’s season in 2022. Seven games I think could be a stretch for them to get to,” Cooney said.
“They’ve got a pretty strong defensive back six, they’ve got enough there for their key defensive posts like (Kyle) Hartigan, (Sam) Frost, (Blake) Hardwick takes the smalls, Sicily is the intercept player, Denver Grainger-Barras … he might struggle to get a game in that back six to start of the season, and then you’ve got Will Day, who I think will play up on a wing hopefully this year.
“They do have a bit of talent coming back, so that’s a huge positive for them.
“How well can (Jacob) Koschitzke and Mitch Lewis play together in that forward line? Koschitzke had a few good games where he kicked a couple of fives and more, so he can play. If they get those two working well together and the smalls working around them, they could go okay.
“I’m going to put them down for six wins – less than season 2021.”