Hawthorn star Jack Ginnivan is overjoyed to have worn the “invisible cloak” he wore at Collingwood, revealing that he used Magpie information to help propel the Hawks to a victory over Brisbane on Sunday.
Ginnivan, 21, had a season-high 23 disposals and a goal at Marvel Stadium, and he was instrumental in the Hawks maintaining an attacking mindset in the final term, a week after they surrendered a 41-point lead and were defeated by Port Adelaide; a fade-out he blamed on an uncertain game plan.
Collingwood’s famed ability to win close matches culminated in last year’s premiership, in which Ginnivan played his last game for the club before a bombshell trade to Waverley.
Ginnivan said on Monday that he provided Hawks’ coach Sam Mitchell with intel last week on what made the Magpies so successful in tight contests, advice that helped his new club surge to a 25-point victory over the Lions despite some nervy moments when the 35-point lead they’d built in the second term was slashed to three points just before three-quarter-time.
Asked if Mitchell had tapped into his knowledge, Ginnivan replied:“Yes, definitely, he [Mitchell] would be silly not to because I have been in that situation so many times.”
“We saw last week [against the Power] I was on the bench trying to coach a little bit. I love being in close situations. I feel like what I need to do in close situations, [is] to help people around me feel comfortable,” he added.
“He [Mitchell] definitely picks my brain. Unfortunately, last week, we had to go through that loss to realise what we could do. Yeah, he definitely picks my brain.”
Speaking on SEN, Ginnivan said Mitchell’s decision to coach from the interchange bench in the final quarter, as Craig McRae does with the Magpies, helped the Hawks to their third win from their past four games.
“I think so. Also, we didn’t go into our shells. Sam’s message at three-quarter-time was that we want to score 100 points, and probably the week before we weren’t predictable to each other,” Ginnivan said.
“We probably didn’t know which way we wanted to go. Did we want to save the game, did we want to knock them out? This week we just wanted to knock them out. We did that, and it was a great feeling.”
Mitchell said it had been at the urging of football department boss Rob McCartney that he had coached at ground level, helping to enforce his final message to the players. The decision to move Blake Hardwick behind the ball late also worked a treat.
“I think when it got to three-quarter-time, and we knew we’d been in this position before, best-case scenario was we continue to play the right way and give ourselves chances to score. The worst-case scenario was (a repeat of last week),” Mitchell said.
“Being able to control that narrative and making sure there was a positivity on the bench was something we didn’t get right last week, so part of that learning was not just for the players, but for the coaches as well.”
Ginnivan said he was enjoying the increased freedom the Hawks had given him, with the dynamic small forward encouraged to roam further up the field than he was in a more structured Magpies lineup.
