Mitchell looking set for Round 1

HAWTHORN believes Tom Mitchell can quickly find the form that made him the 2018 Brownlow medallist after a significant breakthrough in his recovery from a badly broken leg.

Mitchell went down in the second week of January and, late in the season as he recovered, he was still battling with complications, having had the metal rod removed from his leg. But Hawthorn football boss Graham Wright said yesterday Mitchell had “turned the corner” several weeks ago and was expected to make a full recovery.

The Hawks believe full pre-seasons for Chad Wingard and Tom Scully will see them vastly improved, with James Worpel an incredible addition to the midfield after winning this year’s best-and-fairest award.

Isaac Smith will remain at the Hawks and they will likely secure father-son Finn Maginness after an excellent year where he added forward craft to his excellent midfield game.

“Mitchell was down here [this week] having a shoot around, playing basketball with his brother,” Wright said.

“He’s moving pretty well and six to eight weeks ago he was getting some pain, but he’s turned the corner. He is running outside quite a bit and feeling good. He will probably take the full 12 months but we see him joining in training pre-Christmas.

“Nothing will change with Tom, he is as driven as ever. We feel like next year he can get back to being one of the top four or five mids in the competition.

“We are not sure how long it will take to get back to being what he has been, but we are rapt to have him back.”

The Hawks are keen to play Wingard in the midfield ra t her t han as a s mall forward, with the ex-Port star averaging 25 possessions and six tackles in the last month of the year.

“Wingard will play through there and he gives us a different dimension to do a whole range of things in there. With [Ricky] Henderson, Scully and Smith, we feel like we have a good group in there.”

The Hawks are expected to continue with Ben Stratton as captain despite his modest year form-wise and bizarre incidents. “I would have thought so. Last year we did it a little later as we were trying to align our values up and downstairs with the leadership vote, but generally speaking the leadership has been done by Christmas,” Wright said.