Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell has explained the Hawks' list management strategy after his meeting with West Coast captain Oscar Allen made headlines earlier this season.
Mitchell met with Allen just hours after the Eagles' Western Derby defeat to Fremantle, leading to the key forward copping criticism from the AFL industry for exploring his contract options early in the season, especially given his status as captain of the football club.
The four-time premiership Hawk and premiership assistant coach at the Eagles in 2018, Mitchell provided insight into how an AFL club manages their list strategy, calling for calm on the outrage of the situation as the public nature of Mitchell and Allen's meeting is an outlier for the many meetings clubs have with rivals throughout the home and away season.
Mitchell explained how Hawthorn produces a list of potential targets, with thorough reports on highlighted players the key focus before approaching.
"We have a list management committee, and we have every player on every AFL list, and you go 'Okay, here are all the greens - all the players we think would help us. Here are all the oranges - maybe don't know enough about them. Here's all the reds - probably not for us'," Mitchell told Footy Classified.
"There's over 100 names that come out green, and there's a dossier on every player, about whether they are interested, when their contract's up, who their management group is. That's sort of (player acquisition manager) Jarryd Roughead's job.
"The rest of the list management, they go and ask questions of all of the greens: 'Here's all the players we might be interested in, that one's probably not going to go anywhere, this one maybe we keep following'."
Queried about the circumstances of his meeting with Allen, Mitchell was hesitant to reveal any exact specifics about what occured, but confirmed the arrangement took place. The 38-year-old said he regretted the public nature of the story however, as it piled a bucketload of criticism onto Allen. Mitchell deemed the scrutiny unfair given the regularity of mid-season meetings between rival clubs as players explore their options.
"I don't need to get into details about that... we had some time off. My wife and I, we used to live in Perth. She's got some work that she does in Perth. So we went over for a couple of days, and part of it was to do a little bit of recruiting, but we were there to see some friends and do some other things as well," Mitchell confirmed.
"I certainly regret the public narrative and the public nature of it, and the fact that it blew up into what James (Sicily) called 'the storm in a teacup', because these things happen.
"These things happen fairly regularly, and the fact that it all came at once on one player felt a little bit unfair on him, and I was disappointed for him that that happened and that I was a part of that."
Mitchell also played down the involvement of his wife Lyndall, who Hawthorn recruits such as Lloyd Meek have attributed her to being a major player in wooing them into brown and gold stripes.
Mitchell chuckled about the credit his wife has been given, but de-emphasised her role in securing the biggest players on the off-season market.
"If you use Tom Barras as an example, he's moving a wife and two boys, and they're committing their lives to you for the rest of their football career, but they're committing their whole family to living in a new state. So where do you do these meetings? Pretty often you need to do them in a private place, as we've worked out, and quite often it's at my house," Mitchell said.
"Lyndall is not part of it - she's got her own life, she's working, she's doing her own thing. But if people are coming, if you get an agent and a player around to your house, and she might wander in and sometimes she says something.
"I'm like 'keep that one away'," Mitchell laughed.
"But she'll be just having a chat and being a part of the conversation.
"But the fact that people think she's been a positive influence doesn't surprise me. I did marry her, so she's my favourite person, but it's certainly not part of the plan to roll her out like that."
In 2024's off-season, Hawthorn landed key defenders Tom Barrass and Josh Battle, prying the former out of his home state and the latter from a larger paycheck to stay at St Kilda. Although the Hawks suffered their first defeat of the season on Sunday night, the lure of the club and the successful culture they're building will once again play a part in making trade period plays in 2025 and beyond.
