Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell has labelled Chad Wingard the “most competitive player” at the club.
Ahead of his 200th AFL game this weekend, Wingard was the subject of praise from his coach for his selfless nature and constant challenging of standards.
The 28-year-old, who played 147 games with Port Adelaide before joining the Hawks, has not always held the reputation of being a team-first player which is something Mitchell acknowledges.
But he insists that there is much more substance than the highlights reel that will be shown to recognise his milestone prior to this Saturday’s meeting with Richmond at the MCG.
“He’s such an interesting character, Chad Wingard,” he said on SEN Breakfast.
“I was very much looking forward to his tape last week and we missed it. So I’m definitely going to make sure he doesn’t do anything silly today, we’ll put him in cotton wool to make sure we get to watch that.
“The thing about Chad that people don’t appreciate is he would be probably our most competitive player. The thing about him I love is he is so team-orientated in his desire to push standards.”
Mitchell notices Wingard’s frustration when something goes amiss on the field, even if he’s looking on from the bench at the time.
It is something that resonates with him.
“He’ll be sitting on the bench and if we do something that he doesn’t think is to the standard we expect, he’ll be just as angry if he’s nowhere near that play and he’s not the one involved in it,” he added.
“If you look at most players when they get upset, it’s because they weren’t the one on the end of it and should have been, whereas Chad will get just as angry if someone else misses an option for someone else to kick a goal.
“I think he’s the player who I could almost mostly rely on that he will want the team to have success over himself.
“That’s not a part of his reputation that he’s earned externally. Certainly, internally, it’s something that I’ve always been really impressed with.”
Wingard arrived at Waverley in late 2018 and has since played 52 games in the brown and gold.
He missed last weekend’s clash with Essendon because of illness, but is back against the Tigers to mark his 200th.