However, a healthier list and the terrific form of a number of players at VFL level has the Hawks confident the combination is there to take it right up to the Power.

Cameron Stokes, Travis Tuck and Brendan Whitecross have all come into a 25-man squad which will be finalised on Friday night.

And Evans says others were unlucky to miss promotion after impressing at the lower level.

"They all played really well and were quite pivotal in Box Hill’s win last week, as were Robbie Campbell and Jarryd Morton," Evans told hawthornfc.com.au.

"You can sort of see the depth when Morton and Campbell haven’t even been named on the interchange from [list], so it’s certainly a sign that things are a little bit healthier than what we had in the early part of the year."

Happy enough with the performance of a team that – despite last week’s final-quarter hiccup – seems to be gaining momentum at the right time of the season, selectors have held fire.

"There’s no doubt we’ve been playing better football," Evans said.

"In part that’s due to having a much more settled line-up. The converse of that is when you do play good footy you tend not to make changes.

"We were pretty good for three quarters of the game [last week] but it was a really disappointing finish for us.

"We feel like we’ve let the opportunity slip to have won that game. There’s no point dwelling on that but we need to make sure that we’re consistent across the whole game this week in Adelaide and make sure we come home with the four points."

Port Adelaide proved a tough match-up for the Hawks earlier in the season.

While that was at a time when the premiers were struggling for personnel and form, Evans said the Hawks were wary of the Power.

"They’ve got a tremendous group of players and when they play their best football, they’re very hard to stop," he said.

"Our guys will need to be right on top of their game … we’ll need to make sure that we play consistent footy across the whole game."

Hawthorn
B: Guerra, Murphy, Birchall
HB: Schoenmakers, Gilham, Ellis
C: Lewis, Mitchell, Bateman
HF: Osborne, Franklin, McGlynn
F: Rioli, Roughead, Brown
Foll: Taylor, Hodge, Sewell
I/C (from): Dowler, Kennedy, Renouf, Shiels, Stokes, Tuck, Whitecross

 

In: Stokes, Tuck, Whitecross
Out: -