Footy was back in earnest over the weekend, and although the results should be taken with a mountain of salt, the opening acts of a number of potentially season-defining stories were written.
As always, the first games of the JLT Community Series gave us our first look at new rules, new faces in new jumpers, positional changes and new draftees.
Here are the major takeaways from the weekend's action:
4. Young Hawks show promise
They just won't go away. After eschewing early draft picks in favour of known quantities such as Tom Mitchell, Jaeger O'Meara and Chad Wingard in recent years, the Hawks have been left almost empty-handed when it comes to highly-touted draftees. In fact, Hawthorn has picked in the top 20 only twice in the last 10 drafts (pick 19 on both occasions), with these picks netting Isaac Smith and Ryan Burton, who is no longer at the club. Such a dearth of early draft picks would be enough to sink most clubs, but the Hawthorn coaches have done a terrific job of developing players picked in the draft's abyss.
Despite the disappointing result against an almost full-strength Brisbane outfit, the talent of the young Hawks was on full display in the 42-point defeat. Given a chance to shine in a Hawthorn lineup more closely resembling that of the Box Hill Hawks, opportunity-starved James Cousins (29 disposals) shone, as did rookie-listed duo Will Golds (25 disposals) and Harrison Jones (21 disposals).
