Four-time premiership Hawk Jordan Lewis is struggling to find any positives out of Hawthorn’s last fortnight of football.
The club was smashed by St Kilda last weekend before suffering a 38-point loss on the MCG to a seriously undermanned West Coast.
It was a tough game to watch, with neither team kicking a goal in the first quarter before the Eagles took control of the match.
“You come here as a Hawthorn supporter and you look at where they sit on the ladder and you try to look at where the future is,” Lewis told AFL Nation on Sunday.
“What can we hang onto for the next five-to-10 years? I understand James Sicily is out, Jaeger O’Meara is out, so some quality players, but I’m looking at their youth and I can’t see anything to cling onto.
“It was really hard to watch to be honest. (Changkuoth) Jiath is the one player you can go ‘okay, I can see where we’re going with him’.
“It was just a really disappointing performance. After what happened last week against St Kilda, you would expect a bit more fight and it just wasn’t there.”
Gerard Whateley meanwhile points to a moment in 2020 where Jeff Kennett called out Lewis for similar comments on the Hawks and wonders if the club has truly embraced where they are at.
“You’d best describe them as desperately uninspiring,” Whateley said on Monday.
“I listened to Jordan Lewis in the post-match on AFL Nation yesterday and he just couldn’t quite find anything to cling to from a Hawks perspective.
“It took me back to July last year when Jordan Lewis made the critical assessment that every decision henceforth has to be made with a three-to-five-year view and it prompted a critical debate that took in everything from Alastair Clarkson to their draft strategy.
“What happened in the very next match, Hawthorn conceded Carlton a big start in Perth before storming over the top and Jeff Kennett sent Jordan a text telling him that he should know better and he should stick to golf.
“The president took the sugar hit of the day and the Hawks have done nothing since. Nothing.
“They have had three wins in the next 16 games. Over Gold Coast, on a day that swelled with the glow of retirements and they’ve beaten Essendon and Adelaide in extremely tight results this year.
“I’d say Jeff missed the cues. Perhaps it is he who should have known better.
“The question for me is how far advanced is Hawthorn’s rebuild? Can you see the timeline for when the Hawks is next in contention?
“And only 15,000 bothered to see them at the MCG yesterday, not withstanding Mother’s Day has always been challenging for attendances. Are the Hawks any sort of draw at the moment and when will they be next?”
Round 9 is a danger game for the 17th placed Hawks, hosting the winless North Melbourne in Tasmania.
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