Hawthorn have dismissed fears of a form slump for star forward Lance Franklin ahead of Saturday night’s AFL grand final rematch against Sydney.
Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson says he is comfortable with the performance of Franklin, who has been held goalless in his past two games.
And he said the team had quickly recovered from their grand final loss to Sydney last year, claiming that result would have no relevance at the MCG this weekend.
“We probably do all our sooking about that game in the two weeks after it and then move on,” Clarkson said.
“After being a bit disappointed for a couple of weeks for not getting the chocolates last year, it’s move on and work out our campaign for 2013 and how we can give ourselves a chance this year.”
However he was convinced the players would be intent on winning the match because of its blockbuster status rather than a need to atone.
“These are big games of footy so whether we play Geelong or Collingwood or Sydney Swans or West Coast – sides which are genuine finals contenders – our guys have got a really burning desire to compete,” said Clarkson.
“That’s what they love to do. Is there anything more fuelled by a grand final loss?
“It’s for the players to answer moreso than me but, from what I can gather, they are just treating it as another game we’ve got to win.”
The Hawks have made six personnel changes from the 2012 grand final team, while Sydney have four new faces.
And Clarkson said the tactics employed by him and Sydney counterpart John Longmire would also have evolved.
“You’ve got a whole summer and what usually happens in a whole summer of us weirdos as coaches getting together is – there’s 10 at each club and they come up with all sorts of concoctions of how we can go about it differently,” he said.
“So a fair amount changes in the space of six games of home and away let alone a whole summer of coaches getting together and working out how we can do things better.
“A fair bit’s changed since the grand final.”
He was also quick to laugh off doubts over Franklin and rumours he was being chased by other teams, notably the Gold Coast Suns.
“I’m not worried. He’s been a great contributor for us for a long period of time,” Clarkson said.
“He’ll get his mojo at some point in time.”
Clarkson said looking simply at Franklin’s goalscoring gave a distorted picture of his form.
“He still had 17 touches and a heap of defensive acts on our behalf and we didn’t rate his game (against Adelaide) last week particularly poorly at all,” he said.
“He’s still had seven or eight shots on goal in the last couple of weeks and I reckon if you ask most forwards in the competition whether they could get those sort of opportunities in front of goal, they’d be pretty happy with that.
“He’s not too far away.”