Within a culture of provocation, reaction and overreaction, Sam Mitchell’s Hawthorn is most certainly made for these times.
There may not be a singular team within the AFL, or perhaps any professional sporting league in Australia, more adept at the ancient art of the wind up.
Throughout 2024, no group of young men could turn the faces of much older men a deeper shade of red than those pesky young Hoks of Hawthorn. You could ask Ken Hinkley all about that, but his was an experience shared across stadiums and lounge rooms all season long.
The Hawks feature an absolute murderers row of urine extractors. Jack Ginnivan is a veteran of the game, Nick Watson the heir apparent, James Sicily the leader of the pack, and Connor Macdonald and Dylan Moore among the trusted lieutenants.
Ken Hinkley and James Sicily got into it after the semifinal last year. (Getty Images)
Hawthorn’s startling rise to September threat might have been the story of 2024, and its telling centred so heavily around these characters and the stingingly visceral emotions they could bring out in their fans and opponents.
Often underplayed was their quality as footballers, and how central those individuals were to a game plan that took Mitchell’s men within a kick of a preliminary final.
Moore was a deserving All Australian after a breakout season, and Watson a remarkable talent yet to scratch the surface. Ginnivan, a premiership player already, is a far more intelligent footballer than he is given credit.
While you were busy shaking your fists at these precocious upstarts, they were getting down to the business of winning games of football en masse.
In 2025 though, the vibe won’t be enough to sustain Hawthorn. Seventeen teams will have spent the summer picking the Hawks apart through an emotionless lens, daring them to try that funny business out on them again.
They will look to the semifinal defeat to Port Adelaide for clues.
In that match the Hawks failed for one of the few times all season to get their turnover game working, managing a well-below-average 2.2 (14) points from that source.
Port put an emphasis on quelling the likes of Moore, Ginnivan and Watson in that game when they ventured up the ground, and though that irrepressible trio still combined for six of Hawthorn’s 11 goals on the night, their overall impact on the game and the Hawks’ ability to transition from turnover was down.
Jack Ginnivan gets under the opposition’s skins, but is also a highly intelligent and crucial player. (Getty Images: Sarah Reed)
Ginnivan’s run-in with Hinkley after the siren, and Watson’s brilliant third goal, made sure they were still in the headlines after an explosive match, but the Power had won the war.
Not, it must be said, by much.
While Hinkley closed off one of Hawthorn’s most profitable scoring sources, he was unable to stop the Hawks altogether, and in the end had to hold on for dear life to win by three points.
The Hawks adapted and managed to score heavily from stoppage. At times it seemed like it was sheer force of will that was keeping them in that contest against a ferocious crowd and a talented Port team with a chip on its shoulder.
For as much as you could dissect the tactics driving the Hawks in 2024 there absolute was an intangible sort of magic driving them along. Call it confidence or the fearlessness of youth — or even Hokball if you like — Hawthorn was overflowing with it in the back half of last year.
The success or failure of Hawthorn in 2025 will come down to the balance of those two factors — was last season just lightning in a bottle, or the start of a sustainable and repeatable rise towards a premiership?
The Hawks played electric football in the back end of 2024. (Getty Images: Michael Willson)
Hawthorn has understandably banked on the latter in its recruiting of Josh Battle and Tom Barrass, two experienced heads to bolster a defence which did require some bolstering.
Those two additions alone on paper make Hawthorn a better side in 2025, not least because Sicily is now a required body in the forward line thanks to injuries to Calsher Dear and Mitch Lewis.
The Hawks remain young and starry-eyed, and in Mitchell have a coach who was born for the job. Anybody at all surprised by the rapid ascension of the Hawks under his tutelage hadn’t been paying attention, as anything Mitchell touches on the footy field tends to turn to gold.
It’s hard to imagine Hawthorn being boring in 2025. If it is a year of further progression and another finals berth, the Hawks are guaranteed to be among the most watchable teams in the league again.
But if the wheels dislodge even slightly, let alone fall off entirely, you will see millions flock to their devices each week for the hate-watch.
It’s par for the course when your natural habitat is in people’s faces. With a wave of Watson’s wand, you’re helpless but to fall under the Hawthorn spell, for better or worse.