Numbers add up for Hawk

BROWNLOW favouritism doesn’t sit “too comfortably” with Hawthorn ball-magnet Tom Mitchell at the midway point of the season.

Mitchell goes into his 100th game this weekend against Gold Coast with a prolific CV already.

Most disposals ever in a VFL/ AFL match (54), fourth most disposals ever in a season (787), Hawthorn best and fairest in his first year at the club, All Australian — all before notching up 100 games.

A Brownlow Medal is the glaring omission from his growing list of achievements. With Nat Fyfe ineligible for the award, and neither Dustin Martin nor Patrick Dangerfield really threatening in media awards, all roads lead to Mitchell in the race for the league’s highest individual honour. But he said it didn’t worry him. “It’s not something my focus is on and it’s not something I am thinking about so it doesn’t faze me too much,” he said.

Playing through hard tags as the opposition’s No. 1 target most weeks is something that he does have to think about, though.

“It’s obviously something that I’m still working through and learning a lot about”, he admitted. “Each week I’ll prepare and look at vision of opponents I might play on and then also in my individual preparation make sure that physically I’m ready to go with all my treatment and mentally, also, to be in a good headspace.”

He says his battles are only a small piece of the puzzle.

“A lot of people like to focus on the one-on-one matchup but it’s probably more how we as a midfield group deal with those things,” he said. “We might put a target on an opposition midfield player as well and it’s sort of how we can deal with that as a whole midfield group.”