We haven’t forgotten the last time we took on Hawthorn at the MCG, but this week we won’t be looking back on our past successes. Not only is it a new year, our personnel will be different and the Hawks’ personnel on-field will be different as well.

We treat it as a new season, as we always do, and certainly from our point of view tomorrow night’s match is just one of the challenges that confront us this season. We expect Hawthorn to be in the top four or five sides this year and we’re aiming to be the same, so it’s just a challenge between two very good sides.

There is no doubt that Hawthorn are an outstanding team and they’ve won the last five in a row. What makes them an even more imposing challenger this week is the fact that they probably haven’t been playing their best football, which shows just how much of a quality side they are to still be putting wins on the board.

There has been plenty of talk about Lance Franklin this week and the fact he’s been kept goalless over the last two rounds. We don’t take any notice of that because we know what sort of a talent Buddy is and we know he’ll kick a goal sooner rather than later because he’s a great player. Both our talls, Teddy Richards and Heath Grundy, know that whether or not Buddy’s kicking goals, he’s just such a great athlete and he’s able to present up the ground very well and use the ball well, so we’ve just got to try and curb his influence on the game.

The other thing to consider when it comes to the Hawthorn forward line is that they don’t just rely on Buddy to kick the goals for them. While Cyril Rioli is not there this week, they’ve had other guys bobbing up and kicking goals this season like Luke Breust who is playing really well and also Jack Gunston and Paul Puopolo, so that makes them very hard to play against because they have more than one source to get their goals.

In saying that, what makes this game so intriguing is that we also don’t have just one focal point up forward. We’ve had a large spread of goals this season and a lot of our midfielders have kicked goals for us and probably in some ways, Hawthorn are similar with that variety as well.

We’ve been unlucky to lose a few defenders this year, including Alex Johnson for the season as well as Rhyce Shaw and Lewis Roberts-Thomson. The good thing is that we’ve had other players stepping up down there like Dane Rampe, as well as Nick Malceski who is in terrific form.

Mal is just a quality player and he always has been. He’s been hampered by three serious knee injuries, and before that he was second in our best and fairest back in 2007, so he’s returning to the form that he’s capable of and he’s certainly in good knick at the moment.