WHEN selecting the Ultimate Hawks Premiership Team, the first issue to be sorted was whether to go for an all-star team, or to go for a team you would want to take into a Grand Final with a premiership on the line, replete with players who have been there and done that on the biggest stage in football.

I opted for the latter and I hope this is the only Hawthorn side I ever select that leaves Buddy Franklin as only an emergency.

I went for a side with proven Grand Final performers and those who have provided something special for the Hawks on the biggest stage of all.

View Ashley's full team, and select your own, here →

All the Norm Smith Medal winners get a guernsey - Colin Robertston, Gary Ayres, Paul Dear and Luke Hodge. Darrin Pritchard also gets a game on the wing because he was Hawthorn’s best in 1989, the year Geelong’s Gary Ablett won the Norm Smith Medal.

I also found space for Robert DiPierdomenico, who was rated by most judges as best-on-ground in 1978, the year before the Norm Smith Medal was first awarded. His bravery when playing with a punctured lung 11 years later also warrants him a place in the side in my humble opinion. Brendan Edwards gets in because he was the best player in 1961, with 33 touches, and Don Scott in 1971. Not that you’d ever want to enter a Grand Final without Scotty in his prime in your side.

Look at the side and you would see plenty of players at home on Grand Final Day - Chris Langford, Chris Mew, Dermott Brereton and Jason Dunstall among them. Leigh Matthews is the captain, as he should be of any Hawthorn composite team.

I also found space for those who delivered something special for the Hawks in Grand Finals - Stuart Dew for his third quarter heroics in ’08, Cyril Rioli for his brilliance in the same game, Bob Keddie for four final quarter goals in ’71 and Rodney Eade for his blanketing of the dangerous Craig Bradley in ’86. ‘Rocket’ played in four premiership teams for Hawthorn - he knew his way around the MCG on Grand Final Day.

I look at this team and shudder at the names left out apart from Franklin because in my eyes, every Hawthorn premiership player is a hero. There were probably 10 or so who were really stiff not to get in.

And as for the coach, we’re spoiled by choice. I went for Allan Jeans because he was the architect of a side that went to seven straight Grand Finals. But you just know that if it were John Kennedy, David Parkin, Alan Joyce or Alastair Clarkson in charge, it would still be in the best of hands.

Ashley Browne is a writer for afl.com.au and the AFL Record. He has been a Hawthorn member for 32 years and has seen eight of the club’s 10 premierships.