‘Not a strong enough word’: Emotional Hawks rooms scenes say it all as coach left shattered

A ‘heartbroken’ Sam Mitchell has fronted the media following Hawthorn’s three-point semi-final loss to Port Adelaide amid touching post-game scenes in the club rooms.

Mitchell and his playing group embraced after their devastating finals elimination, falling agonisingly short of a preliminary final berth against Sydney.

The third-year coach addressed his troops before they huddled together in uniting and emotional vision.

Watch the best coverage of the 2024 AFL finals, with expert analysis and every game until the Grand Final LIVE with no ad-breaks during play, on Kayo. New to Kayo? Start your free trial today >

“It’s great, isn’t it? They’re great pictures,” Brisbane Lions legend Jonathan Brown told Fox Footy as the footage played.

“(They’re) really moving pictures, no doubt about it, and that’s why these players love him. They play for him, clearly.

“He’s handed the team over to them — he says he’s handed it over to them — it’s their team, the players, but he’s guided them brilliantly.”

After winning 12 of its 14 matches entering Friday night, Hawthorn fell less than a goal short of becoming the first side to start 0-5 and progress to a preliminary final in the same season.

Understandably, Mitchell was visibly despondent in his post-game press conference.

“I’m just really sad this season’s over,” he told reporters at Adelaide Oval.

“So many people put in so much (effort) to get us to this point and for it to be finished, it’s not a strong enough word, disappointment.

“There’s obviously some pride and I’m sure that’ll come out over time, but right now, I’m sad for the players, I’m sad for the fans — I think everyone mostly loved watching what we were doing, and we were just not quite good enough.

“We’ll have to live with that and let it spur us on for next year.”

Asked if it hurt more as a player or coach after a loss in such crushing circumstances, Mitchell couldn’t split it.

“The pain I felt and the pain I saw in their faces was exactly (the same). It was just a mirror,” he said.

“I mean, there’s players and there’s coaches, but we’re all … we’re as one. So many (people) — and it’s not just the players; there’s all staff outside and I looked at all the faces, all the red eyes, and it was pain and disappointment and frustration and regret and pride, and it was just all staring straight back at me.

“I’m sure it’s what you see in my face right now. It’s a brutal game, and we came from a long way back at the start of the year, and if we could have got a bit better a bit quicker, a bit earlier, maybe we win that game.

“We gave ourselves chances, we just didn’t quite take them, but (I) take enormous pride in the playing group.

“We’ve had some challenges (not just) across the whole season but across the last few years, and I think when our fans go to work on Monday, they’ll wear the colours and they’ll be pretty proud of what we put out there today.”

Mitchell was asked to summarise where his brigade fell short, and while he mentioned shortcomings in the contested game, he ultimately uttered: “I’m not too sure just yet, sorry.”

The Hawks mentor spoke of the inevitability of using the pain of the loss as a key motivator.

“It’d be hard not to (use it),” he said on Friday.

“I hope not. I mean, I think pain’s a great motivator. Every training session, when you think about running through the line or finishing your extra rep in the gym and all those things, there’s a little bit of a pain that burns into you.

“I don’t think we were good enough to feel like we could be complacent — we’re going to have to make progress.

“It’s not a natural, linear progression. I’ve said all year that we’re far from a finished product, and we wanted to be in winnable positions more often and we were — we won a lot of them — but we were in a winnable position today, but we just weren’t quite good enough in the end.

“I don’t think motivation has been trouble for this group, (it) hasn’t been an issue for this group. I imagine the pain of what I saw looking back at me post-game, there’s a part of that that will stay (with them) forever.”

Probed on whether he was able to express the pride he has in his players, Mitchell told reporters: “I hope so. I hope I did.

“I’m enormously proud of that group. I said to them: ‘it’s your club now’.

“(We’re) helping them run the place and guiding, trying to be show them what’s needed to be elite at this level of footy — and they know now, so it’s going to be an interesting next period for us.”