Coming into the 2024 season hopes for success for Hawthorn were pretty restrained. Of the 32 AFL media experts who predicted a ladder for the 2024 season, just one had them finishing above 11th. Twenty-five had them finishing in the bottom four.

After five losses in five games to start the season, hope may have run low even amongst the most faithful of Hawks fans.

But what a difference a few months makes. Coming into the last week of the season the Hawks are sitting with destiny in their hands. A win will see them play finals for the first time since 2018.

This is how the Hawks have turned their season — and maybe broader fortunes — around.

Running in waves

Each march up the ladder has its core reason. A team doesn’t just become good out of the blue. It’s not only the talent that each team has at its disposal but also how the team plays — whether they are a free flowing attacking machine or 18 bricks shaped into a wall stopping the other team from scoring.

At the start of the year coach Sam Mitchell was clear on what his vision for Hawthorn was.

“We’re not going to try to build something that will just make us competitive at the moment. We want to build a game style that will make us compete in finals when our time comes,” Mitchell told afl.com.au before the season started.

Different coaches — and fans — have ideas about what a sustainable and successful game style is.

The clear focus for Mitchell and the Hawks has been a focus on structure and defence.

Since the bye no team has conceded fewer points than the Hawks, either in raw numbers or when adjusted for opportunities.

The Hawks’ shift from the bottom of the pack to the top has less to do with personnel than it does strategy and execution.

“I think pressure plays a big part in the way we play our brand, it needs to be done in the middle of the ground and as forwards as well putting on that chase pressure, that hack kick if you like can come the defender’s way and we can rebound off that,” Hawks veteran Jarman Impey told RSN Radio two weeks ago.

On paper the defensive stocks may have not been the most impressive in the league coming into the year. While James Sicily has long been recognised as one of the finest defenders in the league, the rest of the set up in the back third was less clear. The defence was rife with veteran options like Jarman Impey, Karl Amon, Sam Frost sat alongside younger talents such as Josh Weddle.

That’s essentially the same defensive set up that had produced less than stellar results in years past. While the Hawks have regenerated their list via somewhat unconventional means in recent years, the defensive grouping — the key to their current success — has been mostly the same group.

Instead it’s the way the Hawks play on the park that’s proving the difference.

The Hawks are one of the most aggressive sides at sending pressure to opposition ball carriers. They’ll often deploy multiple players to prevent opposition players in general play from taking their first, or even second, option. This coordination in defence has allowed their counterattack to thrive.

That’s despite the Hawks sitting relatively lowly in their raw pressure act numbers. The type of pressure that Hawthorn applies sits outside the standard definition — which only counts the pressure of the nearest defender on a disposal.

“I think one of our biggest strengths is we do run in waves, and we do use the numbers. I think that’s important that we don’t bypass that as well. So we do get an advantage and use the numbers on attack,” Impey added.

Part of this is how the side sets up their structure.

At stoppages the Hawks have a pronounced tendency to feed the ball backwards, or to the boundary line compared to other sides. That’s opposite to most sides, which try to get players moving forward when they get the ball from clearances.

The benefit to doing this is that they have immediate protection against attacks from opposition sides launching attacks of their own. They tend to stand on the defensive goal side of their opponents at centre bounces and at mid-arc stoppages. This also helps to set up for their general “around the ground” structures.

The Hawks tend to sit higher towards their own goal than most other sides up the ground in general play, especially in defence. 

The extra defence at the stoppage layer allows them to do this. While they usually drop a deep spare like most teams in the league, they also are willing to occasionally let direct opponents slide behind a little if they aren’t likely to affect play.

These principles of multi-player pressure to the point of attack and then using numbers on the move to launch counterattacks has paid off in spades. When the Hawks win the ball in live play they tend to do a lot of damage — especially if they can put speed into the transition.

This speed has allowed a nimble forward line to feast on opposition defences. The Hawks forward line is an athletic, mobile group who thrive in space and with pace on the ball.

While this defence is impressive, it’s not infallible.

Just three weeks ago the Giants completed a remarkable 28 point comeback in the last quarter. That surge was triggered by the decision to test the Hawks with speed and space. 

GWS made the conscious decision to play on wherever they could, no matter how risky it seemed, to prevent those powerful Hawthorn pressure waves. The Giants also looked to spread the field to put that strong Hawks positioning under pressure.

Without the extra protection up the ground, the Giants were able to find favourable match-ups in their forward line. Despite winning, it’s an extremely risky way to play that not every side can replicate.

Still, a potential blueprint is there for teams to exploit if the pressure gets too much.

Hope remains

The equation for Hawthorn is simple with just one week left in the normal season. Win and their season continues for sure.

Lose and they’ll have to rely on the results of Sunday’s games to fall favourably.

At the start of the year this would have been a situation that most Hawks fans would have jumped at. The Hawks have had the second youngest list in the competition this year, filled with talent acquired through trades and unconventional pathways.

The Hawks have had more games come from mid-season draftees than their own drafted top 10 national draft picks. That might be a first in league history.

Even at the start of the year Mitchell was talking more about building the foundations for the future, rather than that future rapidly emerging on the rest of the league.

Despite being in a position that few expected at the start of the year Mitchell is somewhat unsure of what his group makes of the situation ahead. But he knows the fun and levity of this group — Hok Ball — is what makes some of it work.

“They’re a hard group to read. You know, I’m 41 years old and I’ve got no idea what they’re talking about half the time — they’re practising their celebrations at training. The thing that I focus on is the parts of the game that matter to my generation,” Mitchell told Fox Footy recently.

“You know — are we still tackling? Are we still training hard? Are we still bringing energy for defensive drills? Are we still doing those things? And if they do them, then all the freedom to them about what they do and how they celebrate a tackle or a goal.”

With a win this week against North Melbourne that hope of lifting the cup will be alive for at least another fortnight.