Hawthorn recruit Jack Ginnivan and captain James Sicily are both doubtful for Saturday’s game against Geelong at GMHBA Stadium, while young forward Calsher Dear is set to miss out after failing to train this week.
Ginnivan left the training session early on Thursday morning due to a lower leg issue, following a fitness test at Waverley Park. The former Collingwood premiership player is believed to have sustained the injury late in Hawthorn’s 61-point victory over West Coast and will be given time to prove his fitness before the game.
Sicily, who completed the first half of Thursday’s session before training away from the main group, consulted with senior coach Sam Mitchell and high-performance boss Peter Burge. The 29-year-old dislocated his shoulder for the second time in two months during the game at Optus Stadium, ending the match on the bench. While surgery has been ruled out in the short term, Sicily may require a similar rehabilitation program to the one he followed after his previous dislocation in round eight. Sicily missed two games in May but has performed at an All-Australian level in the past six weeks.
“We’re not sure just yet, we’ll see how he goes at training and how comfortable he is,” said Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell on Thursday. “We were probably a little bit lucky. It won’t be too long; he certainly won’t need surgery just yet. If he does miss, it will probably be just one game.”
Dear, who watched Thursday’s session before heading inside, didn’t train on Tuesday due to soreness. The 18-year-old has played the past eight games since debuting against the Western Bulldogs in round eight.
On a positive note, key forward Mitch Lewis appears ready to return for the first time at the AFL level since Hawthorn last faced Geelong on Easter Monday, when severe weather delayed the start of the fourth quarter by 45 minutes. The 25-year-old has played two games in the VFL around the mid-season bye, kicking two goals for Box Hill in his first full game in months.
“He just has to get through training today,” Mitchell said. “He is much closer to being ready. I was really pleased with his output – it was a tough day for a key forward in the rain at Box Hill – but I thought he competed well and gave himself a chance.”
Veteran small forward Luke Breust will return to the 23 after being managed for the trip to Western Australia. The dual All-Australian started as the sub in the six games before the bye.
Hawthorn has played at GMHBA Stadium only once since 2006, behind closed doors in round 2, 2020. The Hawks marked tighter ground dimensions at Waverley Park this week to mirror the 115-meter width of Kardinia Park, which is much narrower than the MCG (141 meters), Marvel Stadium (140 meters), and University of Tasmania Stadium.
Despite winning seven of their past eight games to enter round 17 half a game outside the eight at 8-7, Mitchell said finals aren’t on the radar just yet.
“Very much internally, we look at the one-game block. I think we look at the last couple of games we played and we were really pleased to win away against West Coast, but Geelong in Geelong, we haven’t played there in 15 years. That’s a stern test,” he said.
“One of the toughest trips you can do in footy is Geelong in Geelong. We played a practice match there last year and that didn’t go too well, either. I think Geelong down there is as far ahead as we need to look. We can’t influence anything except for the game right ahead of us.”
Hawthorn is set to be aggressive again this free agency and trade period after securing four players last October, with the club in the hunt for St Kilda defender Josh Battle, Western Bulldogs midfielder Bailey Smith, and Greater Western Sydney utility Harry Perryman.
Mitchell wouldn’t detail any targets but said the Hawks are busy behind the scenes under the direction of four-time premiership player Jarryd Roughead, who returned to Waverley Park in January as player acquisition manager.
“I’m never going to go into details about which players or who is talking to whom, but I think every club in the competition is looking to strengthen their list. A lot of that is around the draft, free agency, and the trade period, but those things don’t happen in trade week, you’ve got to do a lot of prep,” he said.
“Our list management team has a long list of players they would love to talk to; some are out-of-contract, some have seven-year deals, so you can’t talk to them unfortunately. We have a lot of players on our list that we would love to join our group. It would be the wrong thing from our list management if they weren’t contacting those players’ managers and going from there.”