Hawthorn great Luke Hodge says he believes his former club would be looking at the future of almost every player on their list as they embark on a full-scale rebuild in the coming years.
After starting the year with a few big wins over Brisbane and Richmond, the Hawks have fallen away and remain a chance to finish 2020 with the wooden spoon.
Attention is naturally turning to the future of several of their players, with current captain Ben Stratton and forward Paul Puopolo announcing on Monday that this weekend’s game against Gold Coast will be their last.
Despite Hawthorn football boss Graham Wright saying the club will not be trading out players for draft picks, Hodge believes the likes of Tom Mitchell, Jaeger O’Meara and Chad Wingard would all be asked whether they’d like to move clubs ahead of next season.
“I think everyone would be on the table,” Hodge said on SEN’s Whateley.
“Not your James Sicily’s or your younger players but anyone who could go somewhere else and play in a premiership and have success .. (Isaac) Smith, (Luke) Breust and (Jack) Gunston have all been lucky and in the right position to play in premierships.
“You’re probably looking at a Tom Mitchell, Jaeger O’Meara and Chad Wingard who have come to Hawthorn thinking they are ready to have a crack and go for a premiership.
“The goal posts have changed at the moment so I would be asking all of them (whether they wanted to move). When Alastair Clarkson does this, it’s never an uncomfortable conversation. It wouldn’t be ‘you’re on the trade table or you’re staying’, it would be ‘what do you think would be best for you and the football club’.
“It’s a mature conversation and they always come out with the same answer.”
Hodge added that while he’s been pleased to see the club turn to youth in recent weeks, if players aged 26 and above were still in the team, it would continue to sideline the club’s next generation of players.
“They’re starting to play a lot of younger guys that they’ve brought into the side over the last few weeks,” he said.
“If they’ve been given a list of 36 for next year then that would make the decision pretty easy (to keep players on) but they’re thinking that the list sizes are still going to be reasonably high and they’ll have to cut it down over the next few years.
“I know they said that they weren’t trading (Jack) Gunston, (Luke) Breust and (Isaac Smith) but there’s a lot of other guys in that mix like Tom Mitchell who is 27, Chad Wingard is 27 and Jaeger O’Meara who is 26, are the going to hold onto all of them or even (have a chat about their future to them)?
“James Frawley is 32, Ricky Henderson is 31 and Ben McEvoy isn’t going anywhere at 31, there’s a lot those guys there who if they continue to stay in the team, they’re going to be taking the spot of all the young guys coming through.
“Every time you’ve got a Gunston and a Breust in the side, they’re playing in their main spots. Smith is on a wing, Tom Mitchell is in the middle, O’Meara is in the middle and Wingard is either up forward or in the middle.
“These guys that are 26 and upwards to 32 are going to be taking the majority of your list again – it’s a question of where Hawthorn are at. Are they going to commit to a rebuild and ask those boys if they want to go somewhere else or are they going to stick with those guys and try and build around them.
“It’s a big call and a big couple of weeks for them.”