A dejected Sam Mitchell had four words to say after his Hawthorn team copped a Friday night spanking from Brisbane.
Facing reporters after the match, the visibly flat Hawks coach said repeatedly throughout his seven-minute press conference, “we’re better than that.”
Asked what was his immediate response to the team after the game, Mitchell said: “I think we were outclassed tonight. I think we’re better than that.
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“Brisbane are obviously a good side. They’ve won the last couple (of flags) and are setting themselves again. We saw it as an opportunity to compete against the best and we weren’t up to it tonight.
“But I think we’re better than that. I think we can execute better than that and play to a high level. And we’re going to need to.”
The 67-point AFL lesson was a bitter pill for Mitchell to swallow, who admitted there was a “little bit of a sting when you have a performance like that”.
And he knows he needs to move quickly to get ready for what’s ahead.
With just two rounds to go before finals, Friday’s 11-goal defeat opens the door on the third-placed Hawks potentially missing a top-four spot as the chasing pack breathe down their necks.
The Lions are now two points behind the Hawks on the ladder while Adelaide and Melbourne sit just a further four points back with their games yet to come this weekend.
It means the Hawks — who haven’t beaten a top-10 team since May — need to win next weekend’s clash with Collingwood at the MCG to ensure they’ll retain that hard-earned third position, especially with the Lions set to host out-of-form Gold Coast in a Queensland derby at the Gabba.
Mitchell made no bones that Friday’s display wasn’t good enough and his team was well beaten, with the challenge now being to show the AFL world that performance was a one-off.
“We know we need to be able to compete consistently against those best sides. We weren’t able to do it tonight but that’s been reasonably rare for us,” he said.
“I think we’re a better side than tonight and we’ll have to prove that next week.
“We’ll spend the next couple of days looking backwards at this making sure we learn the lessons. We’ll spend the middle part of the week improving our game. And we’ll spend the latter part of the week preparing for Collingwood.”
Mitchell was asked what his message was to the players in the aftermath and said it was just a more detailed version of his press conference.
“We’re better than that and we’re going to have to prove it but we’ve got to learn some lessons from that game,” Mitchell said.
“If you did something that you knew wasn’t right at the time or you made an error, be really hard on yourself, but be kind to everyone else and make sure you’re supporting each other.
“By the end of this round we’ll be sitting third on the ladder, coming into two games to go, playing Collingwood on a Saturday night.
“So by the time we lick our wounds and spend a couple of days being annoyed at looking backwards, pretty quickly we’ll recognise that we’re a good side and ready to move forwards.”
– With AAP