Sam Mitchell on not just copying top teams & his hands-on approach with the Wiz - Footy Classified

[Music] welcome back to Footy classified one of the stories of the year has been the Renaissance of the Hawthorne football club many thought there were still a couple of years in their rebuild to come even as late as round five a lot of people thought that there was a fair way to go Sam Mitchell congratulations on making the finals it's a a mighty effort for you and your Club yeah it is it's been quite a journey so far but um new season starts now and excited to be a part of it unbelievable yeah it's been unbelievable Sam and you're really strong allar round five and I remember challenging you here on this set around the decisions you made and all those sorts of things but you've always looked ahead haven't you and and had a plan for your football club which you'd expect you to do and but has it come faster than you thought it would yeah it's interesting um this the buy going into the finals gives a little bit of time for reflection not too much because you're always you're always looking at the next challenge but we did um spend a bit of time this week looking at our original strategy and what the the the parts that needed to be put in place and how consistent we've been and trying to get now there was no sort of speed limit on how quickly it would go but if you had have said um finals this year that would have probably been at the at the very at the very quick end of what we thought was capable well back in 2022 here's what you had to say about your thoughts for the future if we try and play the way mour and jalong are playing they're going to be better than us at that so we need to figure out what the next iteration of the game is and then play in that way so then by in three years time when everyone's trying to play this new style we've already been playing and we've learned all the mistakes and there's other teams saying oh we're not going to beat them at their game they've been doing that for 3 years what's been the the DNA that you've been able to change at Hawthorne or or at least cultivate um you know in recent times it changes because of injuries and everything else that you've had along the journey but there seems to be a really good feeling in your club and everyone knows what their job is yeah I mean I think there's some parts of the game that are consistent for forever um through all the generations about you know playing role and playing selfless footy and all those things but I think you know the way that the game has been played over each each iteration is it always evolves and I think we've we've tried to to be at the front of it rather than be a follower and um you know makes me a bit nervous watching that because everything we've planned for is to get to this point and all the planning says that what the way we're playing should stand up in finals but um we'll find out next week I know you didn't have a line of sight on when you would get a crack out of senior coaching gig but when you went to West Coast for that 2017 season as a player and made a final and then had a great role in the Midfield coaching that won a Premiership were you thinking along those lines as far back as then about what you would do once you got your chance oh I think everyone I think a lot further back than that if you're if you're really honest I think everyone like Jack Gunston I would say once a week Jack Gunston he'll come to me and he'll say so why did you do that and he's not asking me because he's interested in um you know the message it's about what's the motivation behind it so I think you always have players that are thinking ahead about what you know what's the coach's motivation and hopefully not not all of the players are thinking that way but I think once you've established yourself and you know how the coach wants you to play and you establish those things in your game I think all of us we all look at another coach I watch every press conference of the other coaches and you say oh that's interesting I wonder why he said that and so you're always learning on the job and part of that is as a player Sam a lot of coaches like once they become head coaches seem to oversee things so they might have their line coaches Midfield you know but you Nick Watson recently spoke about how you said come into my office you're not going to listen to anyone but me I'm your goalkeeping coach from here and you're involved with recruiting and attracting players so have you said I'm going to do this my way and you're doing it do you believe a lot differently to how other people might do it as the overseer when you become the head coach um yeah I think that I mean that's a convenient story and it makes sense when you look at it like that but if I if I actually use the Nick Watson as the example we watched him play against Richmond midseason and he clearly just lost confidence with his goal kicking and so um I actually went straight to Adrian hmon as the forward coach and said okay how do we how do we go about this and and to us the number one thing he needed was one voice he's such an exciting player the way you guys watch this and the way the fans have flocked to this first year um player he's been like that forever and so when everyone wants to help him everyone wants to talk to him and so the message we had as a head coach and and forward line coach was he needs one voice and Adrien said I think you should do it um and so then I went and spoke to him and the players who I played footy with they said I can't believe you teaching goal kicking but it wasn't about the skills I was teaching it was about if my voice was in his head that would get rid of all of the others are you're teing about the in-game and postgame celebrations I I know you're not but and I've heard you talk about this um can you just take us through it now that you're getting into a final and you have embraced this element of it haven't you and it's been so infectious for obviously the players involved the fans obviously and I feel the wi 40 Community has come along for the ride with you this year as you're doing this type of behavior in and post game yeah I mean I think everyone celebrates in their own way so um you know if you watch Jack Gunston kick any of those goals or Luke Bruce they give it almost nothing they they barely even smile and then and that's their choice and that's fine as well it's not fine with some of that crew and the same way those older guys you know they maybe frown upon some of it but it's all with good fun and I think we look at the theater of the game this is an entertainment business it's an entertainment sport now we're not motivated by that we're high high performance professional athletes all those guys and trying to perform at their best but if you perform at your best generally most things that we love doing we're better at so if they're having a great time playing footy it's not always possible but that's that's what we all aim for as coaches but there's also a bit of stick involved as well as the carrot and uh early on this year you uh you you let rip and this was almost a turning point um what was going on there with people was the the message sinking in or was it something that you had to just jolt everyone and just say right okay it's great having all this fun and the rest of it but we had to win yeah I mean that happens in every football club I'd imagine and certainly in ours but usually behind closed doors I had my time again I might not have done it out in the middle of the MCG but I think every player is is motivated by different things whether it's carrot or stick whether it's a big cuddle or a or a bit of a slap you know I think that the players will respond well to the thing that works for them and working that out is a big part of coaching and that was to Jack scrimshaw and if you look at his season he's been absolutely phenomenal so we've been really open about how we you know you might go behind the scenes because when I saw that at the time I thought wow that that's that's good you you not putting up with it because we're sitting at home everyone watches the game people aren't mugs they see what's going on and if you were if you got anyone out of the crowd to go down and address the the team that day they would have done exactly the same so it's sometimes reaffirming without you know humiliating players to give them a whack like that and everyone's lifted according could you feel it that week that suddenly there was a change was a jolt I think it was coming at that point a lot of people have said oh what was the turning point of the season and it would there's not really one moment there's a few key things that happened I think post the the goal Coast game in round five the players took a lot more ownership and then drive I mean every Club will talk about driving standards and the the reason for that was a kick that was outside of what we were trying to do at that moment in the game and as soon as we went into that it was like okay we know not to do that you know not to do that so the fact you're doing it is putting us behind and that's not the S the standard that we want to accept as a football club Club in that moment so um working with him to make sure that he doesn't do those things and he continues to learn from it is is the standard we tried to create and that was that was at the beginning of it on that theme your ability to respond to a loss you won against the Bulldogs the next week after that particular game and to other losses the the heartbreaking loss to Port Adelaide where you were so far in front and lost in the last 30 seconds or or two seconds and equally the gws game you've responded each time is is that proof to you that your message personally is getting through the way you want it to um I mean I think it's not it's a lot is made of the head coach and my message but I think as a colletive so many people go into making the players play the way that we want them to and so they're doing a fantastic job of expressing themselves and playing with that flare and enthusiasm but also the pressure that that you know is important particularly in in September so when we look back to the the port adelade game I'm actually really disappointed in our review of the week before so we had a we had a secur game that we nearly got run down and we didn't review it well enough we didn't go into detail about why we only just won that game and so then we learned our lesson really harshly the next week and that stayed learned you know that lesson um that's they learned that one and so then we continue to learn on on the job and continue to grow and um the players have been very consistent and whether that means we've won every game we have played consistent for you for a couple of months now Sam I want to show one goal that you kicked against Carlton where it goes inside the forward the your defensive 5050 and the ball bubbles out and one of your at the moment is just how Dynamic your players are and you just see everyone go charging like W's one of the greatest runners in the game already and the young you see imp playing great footy Conor Nash they all just running waves yet you're targeting two key Backs from another team in in barass and Josh battle does that take away potentially from a strength I know you've got to go up against Jamara and Norton and Darcy this week but yeah what the strength you currently got with how dynamic they are as backs versus bringing in two taller players yeah I mean that we are a dynamic group and I think I think Peter Burge has done a fantastic job of getting the the fitness into the players in his whole team I think the players run on top of the ground they they cover the ground well and that in plays like that it looks fantastic but um if you if you look at Sam Frost's year he's played all year as the number one fullback and he has done a phenomenal job he's one of the best you know one-on-one defenders in the competition statistically across the year but really he's quite undersized for that role um ideally he would have been the second the second back um and and if we are able to land one of these guys then that will help him play his role that he's more suited to unfortunately we lost James blank in the preseason and he continues to um recover from his knee reconstruction so we are a little bit lied on for for keys and so if we are able to to get some talent in in that area then that's something we're looking at well Sam has been amazing uh earlier this year Hawthorne fans were de crying why are we recruiting bles who were 5'5 and all that sort of stuff and now it's it's there there's happy team at hathon the supporters are all up just feeling fantastic can you do us a favor can you stay with us because we're going to bring in Paul Marsh and Phil Davis to talk about football as a greater entity I'm really interested maybe I'll give you a head start on one of the questions I want to ask you when you left Hawthorne to go and set yourself up do you feel then for players who are getting to that part of their career not necessarily Christian Peta but certainly he's the man of the moment on those things so we'll get your thoughts on that when we return