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Young Hawk Seamus Mitchell is the Round 17 Rising Star nominee in a season he started as, effectively, the lowest rated player on the Hawks’ list.
He joins teammate Josh Weddle amongst the nominees, and together they will form a big part of Hawthorn’s growth in the coming years.
Mitchell is the now classic product of a disjointed top age year, having moved about 300 clicks south to Bendigo from the family home in Robinvale to focus on footy and getting drafted only to have the season ruined by the COVID pandemic in 2020. His bottom age year – where he played five games for the Bendigo Pioneers – had shown him to be fast and have neat disposal, but his opportunities had been confined to the forward line, so when the Hawks called his name in the second round of the draft it came as some surprise.
This was despite excellent testing at the Draft Combine, where he ran a 2.88sec 20m sprint as well as 91cm running vertical leap – both at the absolute upper end of participants.
Mitchell arrived at Hawthorn wearing a moon boot after injuring his ankle in a training session at his home club in the days leading up to the draft. This was to be the first of many knee, ankle and shoulder injuries that completely derailed his first couple of years at the club, and it was to the surprise of basically nobody when he was delisted at the end of the 2022 season.
In the handful of games he did play in 2022, though, he had shown a bit of a promise as a defender, and with Hawks’ coach Sam Mitchell’s stated aim to have players with elite capabilities at his disposal there is little doubt that his younger namesake was saved from the permanent scrap heap due to his elite speed and previous inability to get on the park for any meaningful period of time.
So, when Mitchell hit the track last December it was as, basically, Hawthorn’s 43rd highest rated player on the list depending on where you rate the draftees who’d been acquired in the National Draft. He had a pre-season to get himself fit, and then 20 odd games to prove his worth and have more years added to his contract.
With Dylan Moore now a vice-captain after being delisted and then rookie drafted less than three years ago, he certainly had a fine example of how quickly the worm can turn though.
He had a strong preseason and showed enough promise in the intraclub games to suggest that adding him to the rookie list was not a waste of time. He started the season soundly in the VFL and was somewhat of a surprise selection in Round 5 when the Hawks were to take on GWS in Norwood as part of Gather Round.
He made a start that pleased supporters (and I’m sure his coaches and teammates) with 17 touches, some good rebound from defence, a few tackles and an altogether promising display from a player who had barely played ten matches of organised football since the end of 2019. Mitchell also took on a few haring runs that illustrated his burst speed.
The ten matches he has played since that debut (he missed one game through illness) have been, in a comparative sense, stunning. He wins contests, rebounds at pace, hits short targets without breaking stride and has fit into the Hawks’ back six with ease such that when he did miss that game through illness he returned immediately.
That was to play Brisbane and in a sign of how far he has come at one point he took the ball with the field in front of him, had a look to see what was behind him and even though it was Charlie Cameron he backed his pace to take a couple of bounces before steadying and sending the ball inside 50.
Seamus Mitchell. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
After so many disruptions since his bottom age year, the confidence he shows is a credit to not just himself but also the Hawthorn coaches and teammates who provide him with that licence to run. With leaders like Sicily and Hardwick around him he has great examples of players who balance defence with attack, and this is clearly something that Mitchell knows is his point of difference as a small defender – if he can win contests as well as run off his man and deliver accurately then his value to the team is enormous.
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Chances of winning the Rising Star
It’s not going to happen, but he absolutely deserves this nomination!
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I think Mitchell has more pace, but he reminds me of Rory Laird in his first few years at the Crows. I’m not sure he has the tools to become a quality ball winning midfielder like Laird has but given his lack of football it’s possible he’s only scratching the surface of his talents.
Ceiling
He’s only just scratching the surface of his talents… does he have the tank to move into the midfield? Could he eventually return to the forward line?
Small defenders who can actually defend are valuable in their own right so it will be interesting to see what Hawthorn has planned for him as there is definitely room for a quick midfielder amongst their mix.
