WITH the disappointment of a 15th place finish comes great hope via the draft and in 2020, Hawthorn came into the event holding its earliest pick since 2005. The Hawks have a history of making good on their high-end selections and filled an immediate list chasm with their first choice on the night, while also gaining some exciting long-term prospects and taking little time to match a bid on their own homegrown talent. A haul of four in the National Draft was capped by one more rookie selection the very next day, making for a handful of fresh faces set to inject even more enthusiasm to the Hawks’ developing list.<\/p>\n
HAWTHORN<\/strong><\/p>\n National Draft:<\/strong> Rookies:<\/strong> Hawthorn’s first pick hinged on much of the action amongst the top five, with the Hawks reaching a happy medium in terms of picking for list needs and the best available talent. After a failed bid on Swans Academy member Braeden Campbell<\/strong>, West Australian Denver Grainger-Barras<\/strong> was the Hawks’ man; the best defender in the draft and an athletic one at that.<\/p>\n At 195cm, he is a terrific intercept marker and has great versatility in the sense that he can lock down opponents or play as a loose man across the back half. The Swan Districts product could well slot straight into James Sicily<\/strong>‘s role from the get-go, while also freeing him up to swing forward or be let off the chain once he recovers from his long-term knee injury.<\/p>\n The Hawks then looked towards bolstering their small stocks with the selections of Seamus Mitchell<\/strong> (Pick 29) and Tyler Brockman<\/strong> (46). While some small forwards are picked for their defensive acts, these two will likely prove selections made on speed and upside. Both are wonderfully quick and have serious x-factor, able to ply their trade as high half-forwards or even closer to goal.<\/p>\n Neither are quite the finished product, but promise to put together handy highlight reels if given a chance at senior level early on. Hawthorn’s recruiting staff were obviously quite high on their talents having jumped on them a touch early, but the pair could prove well worth the price in quick time.<\/p>\n In between those picks came a bid on Next Generation Academy (NGA) product Connor Downie<\/strong>, a driven and professional character who was set to captain the Eastern Ranges this year. The outside midfielder\/defender loves to take the game on and boasts a penetrating left-foot kick, allowing him to gain meterage at a good rate.<\/p>\n Having put four years of work into Downie through their NGA program, the Hawks were prepared to match a bid in the 25-range, so snaring him 10 picks later than that was a bonus. Another outside runner in Jack Saunders<\/strong> rounded out the draft as a rookie pick, adding line-breaking and ball-winning ability to the Hawks’ midfield stocks. The 180cm talent played a key part in Norwood’s Under 18 and Reserves sides this season.<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Featured Image: Hawthorn’s 2020 draftees | Credit: Michael Willson\/AFL Photos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" WITH the disappointment of a 15th place finish comes great hope via the draft and in 2020, Hawthorn came into the event holding its earliest pick since 2005. The Hawks have a history of making good on their high-end selections and filled an immediate list chasm with their first choice on the night, while also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":75253,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11233,8],"tags":[12045,11813,25,235,15253,15254,5701,5689,14671,743,851,15287,10392,12720,15110,1337,3332,11815,1596,2834,15288,12481],"class_list":["post-75252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afl","category-news","tag-12045","tag-2020-afl-draft","tag-afl","tag-afl-draft","tag-afl-draft-recap","tag-afl-draft-review","tag-connor-downie","tag-denver-grainger-barras","tag-draft-picks","tag-first-round","tag-hawthorn","tag-hawthorn-draft-recap","tag-hawthorn-draft-review","tag-jack-saunders","tag-list-needs","tag-national-draft","tag-next-generation-academy","tag-nga","tag-rookie-draft","tag-seamus-mitchell","tag-top-5","tag-tyler-brockman"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/central.rookieme.com\/afl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n#6\u00a0Denver Grainger-Barras<\/a>\u00a0(Swan Districts\/Western Australia)
\n#29\u00a0Seamus Mitchell<\/a>\u00a0(Bendigo Pioneers\/Vic Country)
\n#35\u00a0Connor Downie<\/a>\u00a0(Eastern Ranges\/Vic Metro)
\n#46\u00a0Tyler Brockman<\/a>\u00a0(Subiaco\/Western Australia)<\/p>\n
\nJack Saunders (Norwood)<\/p>\n