Kane Cornes and Matthew Lloyd are both worried Hawthorn may be cutting too deep, with the potential to lose Tom Mitchell, Jaeger O’Meara, Jack Gunston, Ben McEvoy and Liam Shiels in one off-season.
The moves would leave 31-year-old Luke Breust as the most senior player on the list, with Chad Wingard (29), Sam Frost (29) and James Sicily (27) the next oldest.
They will have cut nine of their 13 oldest players from their 2021 list and Cornes believes it is exposing a young core that isn’t quite ready.
“I think it’s about the balance for me. They’ve got these players leaving and yes they’re going to the draft, but they’re not going to the draft with anything significant from the Tom Mitchell trade, or the O’Meara trade,” he told AFL Trade Radio.
“You can still go to the draft, keep the experienced players around you and the best example of it is what Collingwood did.
“I mean, you’re giving yourself no chance next year. Collingwood finished 17th the previous year. They kept Taylor Adams, Darcy Moore, Scott Pendlebury, Mason Cox, Jeremy Howe, Steele Sidebottom, they kept the experience around them, but they also invested in youth and gave them opportunity.
“What Hawthorn is essentially doing is saying ‘we’ve got no hope, we’re essentially tanking’.
“I rate Sam Mitchell highly as a coach, but not many coaches survive three or four years of a hard rebuild. I can see it being ugly for two or three more years.”
Matthew Lloyd believes the Hawks don’t yet have the elite core of young players to carry their future hopes.
“I think the Hawks have some good young players, but they don’t have the cream of the crop. That’s where it’s going to be a really tough season next year,” Lloyd said.
“I really like Will Day, he’s got to get a really good pre-season into him. He’s injured a lot, he needs to get stronger, he hasn’t got the muscle tone he probably needs, but I can see what he does. He’s going to be an elite player.
“Josh Ward was pick seven, you hope he goes on. He’s a workmanlike player at this point, but you’d hope he can become like Andrew Brayshaw. Connor MacDonald was taken in the 20s, but it will be interesting to see how dire it is going to be for a year or two and I think they are cutting too thin.”
Hawthorn hopes to add Fremantle ruckman Lloyd Meek before the end of the trade period, but will attempt to work out trades for both Mitchell and O’Meara.