Fresh off signing a new one-year deal with Hawthorn, Shaun Burgoyne has opened up on the “challenging” 2020 season the club has had to endure.
After early wins over Brisbane and then Richmond, the Hawks now find themselves entrenched in the bottom three with just four wins for the year.
Burgoyne, who will play on in his 20th and final season in 2021, said Hawthorn “can’t hide away” from their current issues.
“We started off really well with wins against Richmond and Brisbane in the first few weeks,” he said on SEN SA Breakfast.
“Hub life (in the Barossa Valley) hasn’t agreed with us at all, we can’t hide away from that. It’s definitely provided its challenges and through all the hardships of this year, we’ve still been able to play footy and keep the game going.
“We’ve also been able to blood some younger players and see if they can play the game, it’s given the coaching staff some opportunities to look at something different in the off-season.
“We’ll have to have a review like you have every year to see where we’ve gone wrong on and off the field and we’ll head into the break and let the coaching staff look after that.
“I’m still confident we can actually turn it around quite quickly, we’ve unearthed some players like (Damon) Greaves who has played the last few weeks and Will Day, who would’ve thought he would’ve played for us this year as a skinny kid and had the impact he has.
“There’s been little gold nuggets that we may have unearthed but it’s not the season we wanted to have.”
Before joining Hawthorn at the start of the 2010 season, the now 37-year-old played 157 games for Port Adelaide over nine years.
With Ken Hinkley’s side sitting pretty on top of the ladder heading into the final round of the home and away season, Burgoyne admitted he would be supporting his former side during the finals.
“I definitely will be,” he said.
“I’ve been watching from afar and I’ve been really happy with how well they’re performing. Port Adelaide were a huge part of me and my wife’s life and to see them playing good footy is very rewarding.
“Hopefully they can go all the way and who knows, Travis Boak could be a chance to win the Brownlow as well and that would be an unbelievable achievement for him.
“I’ll definitely watch them from afar, they’ve had some tough years but it’s good to see them performing. I’ll be watching the finals and hopefully they can go a step further.”