The evergreen Jack Gunston's late-career renaissance has continued with a four-goal haul in Sydney's 14.15 (99) to 13.4 (82) victory over the Swans on Thursday night.
The 34-year-old leads the Coleman Medal race with 13 majors from his three outings so far this season, with the brown and gold's reigning best and fairest as commanding a presence inside 50 as he has ever been.
Despite recent chatter about a potential tilt at the elusive 100 goals in a season surrounding the grizzly veteran, Sam Mitchell was effusive in his praise of the leader's off-field presence as much as he's enamoured with his former teammate's play.
"The thing about Jack is we brought him back to the club from Brisbane, thinking that we would be of great assistance for us off the field, in our development of our youth," Mitchell said.
"He's doing some great things on the field, of course, but off the field he's fantastic for us. He helps us with the coaching, he talks to the players regularly, he runs a lot of our meetings, and we can really lean on him as far as how he goes about his footy."
Mitchell's men were behind at every change in the entertaining clash, but would eventually come home with a wet sail to hand the Swans their first loss of 2026.
The Hawks were steely in defence, stemming the tide of Sydney's high-octane ball movement with the aerial prowess of their key pillars, a feature of the contest. Ornaments James Sicily and Tom Barrass were capably supported by Jack Scrimshaw, with the trio combining for 29 intercept possessions.
Mitchell was well pleased with Barrass' performance, in particular.
"He was pretty important for us," he said.
"They breached us. They put so much intensity into their running half-back game, and I thought we did a great job at forcing them to kick it. The only issue (for Sydney) when we force them to kick it, is they're kicking it to isolated contests.
"'TB' was fantastic last week as well, but when they kick it long and deep and he's in the goal square or in the forward 50, isolated, I'm pretty glad we've got him in those moments."
Different methods of play were utilised by both coaches, making for an intriguing affair. The game started as an example of break-neck offence, with spearheads Mabior Chol and Charlie Curnow the early beneficiaries. Swans coach Dean Cox joined Mitchell in opting to free up a defender behind the ball in order to stem scoring, and as such, the second quarter in particular was played in a manner that contrasted the first stanza rather obviously.
"We had to really earn the win," Mitchell continued.
"I couldn't be more proud of the effort they put in. Anyone who was at the game, there was an intensity about the whole game, right to the last five seconds."
"I thought they were very, very good, Sydney, but I did feel like we deserved to win.
"We've got a bit of a break now, so one of the things we're going to have to look at working on is scoring when the game is locked in our front half, because the best teams do it and we're not quite there yet in that area of our game.
"From the opportunities we had, we should have put a bigger score up. Our defensive intent and our tackling pressure probably saved us a few times as well."
Nick Watson turned in another eye-catching performance, overcoming a hip complaint and numerous hard hits, including some friendly fire from co-captain Jai Newcombe. For all of his electric highlights, Mitchell is most drawn to another aspect of 'The Wizard's game.
"The thing about Nick is he's exciting and he's fun to watch but he is genuinely tough. A big part of the reason why we drafted him so early is because he is genuinely tough. He's not intimidating as far as his size goes, but he's one of the toughest players we've got."
Mitchell was full of praise for 'The Wizard's partner in crime, Jack Ginnivan, too, with the former Magpie's persistence heralded as emblematic of the maturity the coach wants to see from his side.
"To have such a significant influence in the second half, after being quiet (in the first), is a step in the right direction and an example of the maturity we need as a group, to compete against the very best. We need to be able to collectively do that in the way that Jack did tonight."
The Hawks have a controversial 18-day break before their next outing; a mouthwatering Easter Monday date with long-time rivals, the Geelong Cats.
