Hawthorn's Sam Mitchell is a modern day coach who understands that the harsh leadership ways of the past don't necessarily gel with the current crop of players. However, the Hawks coach can still deliver a spray and during the halftime break his midfield group copped a mighty bellowing.
The Hawks had built up a strong 46-point lead against Gold Coast on Saturday afternoon, before a flurry of quick goals saw the deficit drop to 23 points at halftime.
The broadcast showed a furious Mitchell at the main break demanding more from his players through the centre of the ground to deny a Gold Coast comeback. Mitchell reflected on the spray after the match.
"I thought I might get asked about that," he said with a laugh.
"As a team we know we have some maturing to do in handling momentum swings. I think we conceded the last four of the first half and there were some things that were well within our control. Sometimes you get goals scored against you and that's okay, that's a part of footy.
"But sometimes they are within your control and it's against what you are trying to achieve and when you own up to those things and make them your own, you improve and that's what happened. I was really pleased."
The old fashioned spray has been in the news in recent weeks with North Melbourne coach Alastair Clarkson's personal and strong challenge on young gun Colby McKercher at three-quarter time grabbing headlines earlier in the year.
But Mitchell's use of the spray worked well as he said the players responded following halftime.
"I thought the mentality of the players halfway through the third, the game was well and truly slipping away from us, even though it got to nine points, but they had kicked six in a row," he said.
"I think it looked to everyone that the Suns were going to grind us down and have a four or five-goal win, so for the players to respond from halfway through the third and pull away into what ended up a reasonably sized win, I thought showed enormous maturity of the group.
"And that's what we need to do to beat the best sides of which we consider to the Suns to be one of them."
