Hawthorn veteran Sam Mitchell says their AFL qualifying-final loss to West Coast may work in their favour come grand final time on Saturday.

The defending champion Hawks were rocked by the Eagles, suffering a 32-point loss in week one of the finals.

Mitchell said it didn’t hurt their confidence but put them on guard for the MCG encounter.

“Clearly it shows us that they can beat us and that’s probably not a bad thing,” the former skipper said.

“We take a little bit of confidence in that we can’t play that badly again.”