Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell has weighed in after his former teammate Luke Hodge critised forward Jack Ginnivan‘s social media antics in the lead up to their semi-final against Port Adelaide on Friday night at Adelaide Oval.
It comes as Matthew Lloyd condemned Ginnivan’s actions, warning him that while they may be funny now, they will likely come back to haunt him in the future.
Ginnivan took to Instagram to comment on former Collingwood teammate Brodie Grundy‘s post early this week.
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Now-Swans ruckman Grundy, whose side came from 28 points down to defeat cross-town rivals GWS and book their spot in a home preliminary final, posted a series of selfies with teammates post match.
He captioned the upload, “Post game snaps // Finals Edition”, after their six-point victory.
Ginnivan replied to the post with a short comment, stating, “see u in 14 days”, suggesting his Hawks will beat the Power and meet Sydney in a preliminary final.
Hodge, who played in four premierships for the Hawks and captained three of them, wasn’t too thrilled to hear of Ginnivan’s recent social media antics on the eve of another final.
The former Hawk offered up an alternative move to keep the banter alive, but away from the public eye.
“What you do is, you send banter in a text message, you don’t put it out in the open for Port Adelaide to sit there and go, ‘let’s use this and get stuck into Ginnivan’,” Hodge said on SEN radio.
“You don’t want to go give anything to an opponent to try and make them come out any more pumped up.”
Mitchell responded to Hodge’s comments on Wednesday.
“Our players, a lot of them don’t have each other’s phone numbers – in my world, you send each other a text,” Mitchell said.
“They don’t do that, that’s not how they communicate. They send it via Snapchat, or TikTok, who knows what else they do?
“The way the world operates in that realm is not my expertise … Hodgy is obviously from my old-school days. I heard his comments, and I know he’s just trying to spur on the Hawks as he goes for us this week.”
But Lloyd still isn’t satisfied with the 21-year-old, fearful that if he doesn’t perform on Friday night, he’ll cop it from his own club.
“It will turn on him. If you keep going down this track, eventually you are going to wear very much thin on your football club,” LLoyd said on Nine’s Footy Classified on Wednesday night.
”I reckon that those internally would be disappointed. They’re not going to say that publicly, because you don’t do that on the eve of a final.
“I just don’t see how it helps him.”
Eddie McGuire’s biggest concern surrounds Ginnivan’s overuse of social media.
“I just think these days, you open yourself up too much to social media,” he said.
The Hawks head to Adelaide Oval on Friday night to play Port Adelaide, with the winner advancing to a preliminary final clash at the SCG against Sydney.