This is the first instalment of KICK History, an off-season series that answers one all-time question a week from kicker’s own database. We start with Hawthorn.

How this list works

Three rules, each set by what the data can and can’t support:

  1. Only games played for Hawthorn count. A player’s score here is his average across his Hawthorn seasons only, with each season weighted by the games he played in it. Tom Mitchell’s Sydney and Collingwood years are left out, and so are Jack Gunston’s seasons at Adelaide and Brisbane. Ranking on whole-career numbers would credit a recruit’s entire career to his new club.
  2. We use position-fair KICK (KICK-P). Plain KICK tends to rate midfielders above other positions, which is why kicker built KICK-P: it scales each player’s score against others in his position, so a key defender and a ruckman can be compared with a midfielder. We show plain KICK too, in the last column.
  3. Two eras, never mixed. Before 1965 most matches recorded goalkickers only, so there is no KICK score for those players. From 1965 the box score adds kicks, handballs and marks; tackles arrive in 1987, clearances in 1998 and contested possessions in 1999. KICK is not adjusted for era, and scores before 2000 run well below modern ones, so we rank 2000–2026 and 1965–1999 as two separate groups. Each player goes in the group where he played most of his rated Hawthorn games (an exact split goes to 2000–2026), and his average still covers all his Hawthorn seasons from 1965 on.

The minimum is 100 rated games for Hawthorn. A rated game is one with a recorded stat line for the player and, in seasons where time on ground is recorded, at least half the match played, so the count can be a little lower than his games played.

The top 20 since 2000

52 players qualify.

# Player Pos First–last rated season Rated games KICK-P at club KICK at club
1 Tom Mitchell Midfielder 2017–2022 106 76.5 75.7
2 James Sicily Defender 2015–2026 203 67.6 53.0
3 Sam Mitchell Midfielder 2002–2016 301 66.9 66.6
4 Lance Franklin Forward 2005–2013 179 65.1 58.2
5 Jai Newcombe Midfielder 2021–2026 125 63.0 61.9
6 Luke Hodge Midfielder 2002–2017 303 62.4 61.2
7 Jordan Lewis Midfielder 2005–2016 261 62.0 61.6
8 Ben McEvoy Ruck 2014–2022 159 60.5 52.0
9 Josh Gibson Defender 2010–2017 159 60.2 46.2
10 Jarryd Roughead Forward 2005–2019 280 58.6 53.2
11 Shane Crawford Midfielder 1993–2008 304 58.5 51.5
12 Cyril Rioli Forward 2008–2018 182 58.1 54.5
13 Jack Gunston Forward 2012–2026 265 56.4 50.8
14 Brad Sewell Midfielder 2004–2014 189 56.0 55.9
15 James Worpel Midfielder 2018–2025 145 55.1 54.8
16 Liam Shiels Midfielder 2009–2022 251 54.8 54.2
17 Jonathon Ceglar Ruck 2013–2021 100 54.5 47.3
18 Isaac Smith Midfielder 2011–2020 206 54.5 54.2
19 David Hale Ruck 2011–2015 106 53.6 48.6
20 Jack Scrimshaw Defender 2019–2026 115 53.6 41.7

Tom Mitchell’s lead is large. His 76.5 is almost nine points clear of second place, the biggest gap anywhere in the table. It comes from 106 rated games for Hawthorn, a few over the minimum, so it is a smaller sample than most of the names below him. His plain KICK at Hawthorn (75.7) is also the highest here, so he tops the list on both measures.

James Sicily is where the position adjustment matters most. His plain KICK at Hawthorn is 53.0, a solid figure that would put him well down a raw list. His 67.6 makes him the top defender and second overall. Josh Gibson (46.2 plain, 60.2 position-fair) and Jack Scrimshaw (41.7 plain, 53.6 position-fair) make the same jump for the same reason.

The long careers sit just behind. Sam Mitchell, Luke Hodge and Shane Crawford each have more than 300 rated Hawthorn games, almost three times Tom Mitchell’s sample. Sam Mitchell’s 66.9 across 301 games is the strongest long run in the table.

Four of the top 20 played for Hawthorn in 2026: Jai Newcombe (fifth, 63.0 from 125 games), Sicily, Gunston and Scrimshaw. Their numbers can still change.

Shane Crawford played for Hawthorn from 1993 to 2008. He sits in the modern table because most of his rated Hawthorn games came in 2000 or later.

The top 10 of 1965–1999

60 players qualify. Remember that these scores are not comparable with the table above.

# Player Pos First–last rated season Rated games KICK-P at club KICK at club
1 Peter Hudson Forward 1967–1977 129 73.5 50.6
2 Jason Dunstall Forward 1985–1998 269 65.7 45.4
3 Paul Salmon Ruck 1996–2000 100 64.7 46.6
4 Leigh Matthews Forward 1969–1985 332 63.9 45.4
5 Gary Buckenara Forward 1982–1990 154 55.9 40.0
6 Darren Jarman Forward 1991–1995 109 55.6 40.3
7 Nick Holland Forward 1994–2005 172 54.0 42.9
8 Dermott Brereton Forward 1982–1992 189 51.0 36.1
9 Terry Wallace Midfielder 1978–1986 174 50.0 36.8
10 John Platten Midfielder 1986–1997 258 49.8 36.7

Seven of the ten are classed as forwards. Goals are recorded for every match in this era, while tackles are missing before 1987 and clearances and contested possessions before the late 1990s. That may favour players whose main output was goals; we have not measured by how much. Read this table as “who produced the most of what was recorded”, not as a complete verdict.

Peter Hudson has the highest score of the era at 73.5 from 129 rated games. Jason Dunstall is second, averaging 65.7 across 269 rated games, more than twice as many.

Leigh Matthews is classed here as a forward. That label comes from kicker’s position data, and anything the box score did not yet record, such as tackles before 1987, is missing from his score. Even so he ranks fourth across 332 rated games, more than anyone else shown in either table.

Best by position

The top three in each of the four main positions, by KICK-P at Hawthorn.

Position 2000–2026 1965–1999
Midfielder Tom Mitchell 76.5, Sam Mitchell 66.9, Jai Newcombe 63.0 Terry Wallace 50.0, John Platten 49.8, Daniel Harford 48.2
Forward Lance Franklin 65.1, Jarryd Roughead 58.6, Cyril Rioli 58.1 Peter Hudson 73.5, Jason Dunstall 65.7, Leigh Matthews 63.9
Defender James Sicily 67.6, Josh Gibson 60.2, Jack Scrimshaw 53.6 Mark Graham 44.5, Peter Knights 41.3, Luke McCabe 39.1
Ruck Ben McEvoy 60.5, Jonathon Ceglar 54.5, David Hale 53.6 Paul Salmon 64.7, Don Scott 41.6, Greg Dear 39.5

Who isn’t here

514 players have no rated Hawthorn season from 1965 on, so they have no KICK score at the club and can’t appear in either table. Their games and goals are still on their player pages.

Players our position data labels Utility are included in the rankings but are scored on a general rather than position-specific scale. None reaches either table; the highest is Dylan Moore, 21st since 2000 at 52.7.

Sources and method

Every number comes from kicker’s KICK database, built from AFL Tables match records. KICK-P is explained on the positional leaderboards (for example midfielders) and the full formula is on the methodology page. For Hawthorn’s all-time leaders on peak 40-game form instead of club average, plus the current squad, see the Hawthorn club page.

Next week in KICK History: Geelong.