They've won the last two premierships, are the favourites again this year, and if their most recent match had run two seconds longer they'd be undefeated. Things aren't exactly going badly at Hawthorn.
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Despite all that, Hawks forward Jack Gunston believes his team is "just with the main pack."
Speaking the day after his side came from 35 points down to lead Essendon by 16, only to concede three late goals and lose by two points, Gunston quashed any notion of Hawthorn complacency. "Everyone's calling us outside the club 'invincible' and all these sort of words. We know we're just with the main pack and we're just striving to be top four," Gunston said at Waverley Park on Monday morning.
"We know we're going to drop games, and losing one early in the season, it gives you enough time to review it and bounce back next week."
Gunston, 23, suggested the defeat was disappointing on two fronts: firstly that the team fell so far back, and secondly that it had then coughed up what should have been a secure buffer. While he was speaking before the team reviewed the game, Gunston believed the Hawks' lack of forward pressure late in the game was central to the result. "They just managed to win the 50-50 balls around the contest and probably our forward entries weren't deep and we weren't able to lock it in there. They were able to come out the front door...we weren't able to set up behind the ball and help out our defenders."
Still 10 points up with less than two minutes remaining, and with the ball inside their attacking 50, Hawthorn allowed the Bombers to race the ball down the other end where Travis Colyer kicked the game's penultimate goal, before Cale Hooker snapped the match-winner. Gunston claimed it was execution rather than planning that proved costly. "We've obviously got some set plays that we do and practice and this time it didn't come off where other times I think we've been pretty successful with it."
With his arm in a sling, key defender James Frawley sat forlornly in the Waverley Park coffee shop ahead of scans on Monday afternoon which will determine the seriousness of a right pectoral injury he sustained against the Dons. The Hawks are due to provide an update on the former Demon's condition on Tuesday.
