Only a handful of Hawthorn's premiership players will play in the opening NAB Challenge game on Thursday as the Hawks manage their protracted pre-season draw leading into round one.
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The Hawks play in the first pre-season game but the last game of the first home-and-away round so the club is seeking to manage its older players through the build-up.
Sam Mitchell, Luke Breust, Liam Shiels, Will Langford and Taylor Duryea will all play against Collingwood in the opening Nab Challenge game on Thursday night in Launceston.
A decision is yet to be made on whether Jarryd Roughead, Ben McEvoy, Brian Lake and Jack Gunston will also take the field. The veteran, Lake, would appear unlikely to play.
Free agency recruit James Frawley will play his first game for the club while fellow recruit Jono O'Rourke - the former No. 2 draft pick recruited from Greater Western Sydney - will not play after rolling an ankle in a club practice game last week.
Matt Spangher is managing a calf problem while Bradley Hill and Shaun Burgoyne will not play after they both played in the Indigenous All Stars game against West Coast at the weekend.
Grant Birchall is carrying the most serious injury of the premiership players, a medial ligament injury which will sideline him for four-six weeks but should have him back for play round one.
"We haven't finalised the team yet because we will have match committee but we will be playing a very young team. It is probably easier to talk about who is playing than who is not playing but it could be seven or eight (of last year's premiership team) or as few as four or five," Hawks football manager Chris Fagan said.
"It is a difficult one because of the way our draw is. We are playing the first NAB game but we are the last game of round one on Easter Monday so that is a long period and even a long break between our last NAB game and our round one game.
"We have taken the view that we will play more of our younger players in NAB (week) 1 and then our more experienced players in NAB 2, 3 and the practice game into round one.
"We debuted seven blokes last year as well as McEvoy, who came to the club, so we want to keep giving our young blokes a go and pushing them up to see who will take a place.
"It is not in any way disrespectful to the NAB Challenge or Collingwood, it's just our best program leading into round one. The elongated preparation we have is the only thing that is driving it."
