DEVASTATED Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell said he would "ramp things up" at training in the coming week, to the point of being prepared to cop another injury, following the "unacceptable" loss to Gold Coast on Saturday night.
The winless Hawks take on North Melbourne next Sunday and Mitchell said both the players and coaches would need to seriously re-evaluate their approach following the 53-point hiding.
SUNS v HAWKS Full match coverage and stats
Visibly distraught by his team's performance at the post-match press conference, Mitchell said there was not one positive to take from the loss.
"I'm enormously disappointed. We should be well past games like that," he said.
"We lost every aspect of that game. We lost the midfield battle. We couldn't win a contest in front of the ball. We couldn't stop them scoring at the other end.
"There was not a single aspect of that game that went in our favour.
"I think we're probably the easiest team to put pressure on, because we invite it ourselves, and they were really good in that area."
Hawthorn's midfield was thumped by Gold Coast. While Noah Anderson (36 disposals), Touk Miller (28) and Matt Rowell (23) ran amok, opponents James Worpel (14), Conor Nash (10) and Jai Newcomb (10) could barely lay their hands on the ball.
Suns second-gamer Will Graham laid 14 strong tackles and also outplayed any midfielder wearing a brown and gold jumper.
Mitchell said Hawthorn spoke about the greasy conditions and Gold Coast's excellent tackling, yet his team continued to make errors.
"That's a completely unacceptable way to play. That's as bad as we've played in a long time," he said.
"It's not good enough.
"We had a chat with the players (post-match) around the standard that we hold ourselves to. Our training, how much extras we do, how much time we're putting in, how much tape we're watching.
"If you're not looking under every rock to figure out the best way for you … I don't know how many players would say they're in good form at the moment.
"Coaches too, have we got the right plan?"
Already sporting a long injury list, Mitchell said there would be no mucking around at training this week, with eight days to prepare for the Kangaroos.
"I think we're probably going to have to ramp a few things up during the week and if we lose one (player) to a corkie or something like that, then we probably have to accept that," he said.
"We can't play with the physicality we did tonight and expect to be competitive."
Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick was understandably delighted with his team's performance.
The only sour note of the victory that took the Suns to 3-2 was a hamstring injury for small forward Malcolm Rosas jnr.
Hardwick said he was already looking forward to playing Sydney at the SCG next Sunday.
"Sydney are one of those clubs you strive to become, if that makes sense?" Hardwick said.
"They're always in finals, they always show up every week. We're starting to build that journey now.
"They're a club we'd love to beat.
"We go in really, really confident that if we play our way, come in with the same defensive intent and back in our system, I think we're a chance."
