SAM MITCHELL

MODERN-DAY GREAT

ASHLEY BROWNE

Fact File

Club: Hawthorn/ West Coast

Born: October 12, 1982

Recruited from: Mooroolbark/ Eastern U18/ Box Hill (VFL)

Playing career: 2002-17 (Haw 200216; WCE 2017)

Games: 329 (Haw 307; WCE 22)

Goals: 71 (Haw 67; WCE 4)

Player honours: Brownlow Medal 2012 (equal); Haw best and fairest 2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2016; All-Australian 2011, 2013, 2015; AFL Rising Star 2003; VFL Liston Medal 2002; Haw premierships 2008 (capt), 2013, 2014, 2015; Haw captain 2008-10.

Coaching record: Hawthorn 2022-

It is said it takes a village to raise a child.

Sam Mitchell will tell you an elite athlete will not bloom without a supportive family and can’t possibly be their best without the dedication of a partner.

Mitchell enters the Australian Football Hall of Fame at the first possible opportunity with one of the great football CVs of the modern AFL era – four premierships, five Crimmins Medals, three All-Australian blazers and a Brownlow Medal. Famous for a minimum of words, a small rear-vision mirror on life and a clinical, perfunctory approach to excellence, induction into the Hall of Fame causes him to reflect on 20 years in the game that has rushed by, and to give particular thanks to wife Lyndall and his wider family.

“I’m not an overly emotional type, but you think about all the people who help you get there. Your wife, your coaches, friends, parents …” he said.

“Lyndall and I have been together for nearly 20 years and so much of our life has been filled up by the AFL, so to be acknowledged and to say your service is appreciated by others is very special.”

The mind’s eye when remembering Mitchell the player is one who was constantly in the right place, won his overwhelming share of contests, always delivered to a teammate and made his team better with the speed of his thought and his clean skills on both sides of his body.

Three of his four premierships came after 30, as did most of his best and fairests, hence the thanks to Lyndall, and the delight in sharing the honour with children Smith, Emmy and Scarlett and the wider family.

Before he’d even got to Hawthorn, the path trod to AFL level was not garlanded with roses – he wasn’t selected at the National Draft despite winning two best and fairests as a junior at the Eastern Ranges.

“One of the things that happened was the Draft Camp invitations came out with about eight-10 rounds to go in my last year of junior footy, and I wasn’t one of them,” he said.

“At that point you know you are not getting drafted when you’ve been under their eyes for that long.”

The young Mitchell was a footballer, not an athlete, but he could win the ball and he had to quickly decide what he wanted to do next – be a top-class suburban footballer and be reasonably well paid or find a different way into the AFL and continue chasing his dream to be his best.

Rather than head to the SANFL or WAFL to try to be noticed, the partnership between Hawthorn and Box Hill had just started and he headed there to play under Donald McDonald.

“I thought playing against AFL players in the VFL was the best way to show I could play,” he said.

“My era of that draft period was about looking at athletes, but I was a footballer. I was short and slow, but clearances were my one-wood.

“My belief in myself didn’t waver, but the thought of whether I would get there as an AFL player certainly took a hit.”

McDonald backed him and remains one of the first people Mitchell credits for achieving his goals, along with David Parkin, Richie Vandenberg, Daniel Chick and Shane Crawford.

“Donald was a huge advocate for me and he played me in key roles, ahead of older AFL guys trying to continue their careers, while ‘Parko’ was someone in my corner, and then so were guys like Richie, Daniel Chick and ‘Crawf’,” he said.

“That fight for my opportunity must have been significant behind the scenes, but Donald did that in pushing me forward and at the end of the year I was drafted by the Hawks.”

Even then, second time around at the draft, it was still a close-run thing – Mitchell learned later in his career that Hawthorn had agonised on whether to select him or Leigh Montagna.

The Hawks asked for extra time on pick 36 and eventually plumped for their winner of the Liston Medal.

Moments later St Kilda didn’t hesitate for a second and couldn’t call Montagna’s name fast enough at No. 37.

Parkin both backed Mitchell and hectored him on how to improve, while the player himself felt he could belong after a run of four games at the end of his debut season, including polling his first Brownlow Medal vote in the last game of 2002 against Geelong.

The arrival of Alastair Clarkson in 2005 turned the club upside down and set a group of highly-talented individuals –yet to achieve any significant success – on their way to building a dynasty.

“There was a Hawthorn way we did things, because it had been successful for so long, but ‘Clarko’ came along and changed everything,” Mitchell said.

“He just drove the professionalism and what would be best for the players to achieve success, and he had such incredible belief in a new way to play and a new way to defend.”

Mitchell was captain of the 2008 premiership team against the odds over a brilliant Geelong outfit.

Clarkson famously believed his Hawks could win with system, whereby they were the first to zone the entire ground with a full-team defence, and the Cats – a team of sharks that always needed to go forward – lost their way in a full-ground net.

At this time, Smith and twins Emmy and Scarlett arrived within a year and life was incredibly full, hence the thanks to Lyndall and those around him who provided constant support.

Mark Evans, then Hawthorn football manager and now CEO at Gold Coast, was a pivotal figure alongside Lyndall for Mitchell to be the footballer he could be.

“It’s very tough to be trying to play top-class sport with three very young babies and Lyndall was doing so much in a very tough period,” he said.

“When I turned 30, we had one premiership, had lost one to the Swans (in 2012), we were in danger of not justifying our potential and I’d cost us a key big game in a preliminary final (2011) with something I did to give away a key late free kick. So I had a lot to drive me.

“At that time, we began six years of top footy and won three premierships, but I never looked back and enjoyed it when I was in the middle of it.”

A Hall of Fame interview can’t be complete without defining the greats he played with and against. The answers come in a flash.

“Gary Ablett was awesome,” he said. “He was so complete. He could kick goals, had a great engine, had great power and great speed. He could break tackles and he could nail tackles. He had everything.

“He was the best player of my generation.

“As a teammate, Lance (Franklin) was just so commanding in everything he did. It’s not hard to pick those two out.”

PATRICK KEANE