Struggling Hawks heroes ‘smelling the roses’, say Hawthorn insiders

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Don’t just blame the newcomers: Hawthorn insiders believe the Hawks’ dramatic form slump can also be attributed to their premiership stars becoming a bit content with themselves, 3AW Football’s Kane Cornes has told us.

The former Port Adelaide star has been told extra-curricular activities were taking more of a priority because key players are ‘starting to smell the roses a little bit’.

‘The word coming out of Hawthorn and if you speak to people that would know, they’re saying that for the first time in a long time – probably eight or nine years – they get the feeling that the players are happy with where they have been, and happy with what they’ve done,’ Kane said in the GWS v Sydney pre-game coverage on 3AW.

‘Not so much their training, but what they’re doing away from the club, and a little bit of their attitude – they’re starting to smell the roses a little bit, and probably rightly so, sub-consciously.

‘When it’s got really hard out there on game day – you know, two thirds of these guys are three-time premiership players – and they just haven’t been able to, (nor) prepared to, dig in.’

But Kane also has question marks over the potency of some high-profile recruits.

Cornes on Tom Mitchell: I think he’s a third- or fourth-string midfielder, not the main man, and probably struggling to be the main man.

Cornes on Tyrone Vickery: He’s probably not going to work. (Vickery kicked three goals for Box Hill in its 66-point VFL win against Coburg on Saturday.)

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