HAWTHORN has made an art form of plucking star recruits from rival clubs, but coach Alastair Clarkson says he's 'baffled' by speculation linking four gun midfielders to the Hawks.
Sydney Swans ball magnet Tom Mitchell, Adelaide youngster Brad Crouch, plus Gold Coast pair Jaeger O'Meara and Dion Prestia have all been reported as trade targets for the three-time defending premiers this off-season.
"We haven't got salary cap room to bring in 20, and every player that's possibly moving from a club Hawthorn's linked to, so that baffles us a little bit," Clarkson said.
"But we can't control the noise on the outside, we've just got to do what we need to do.
"Graham Wright (recruiting manager) is the guy that's in charge of that at our footy club and we like to just go about it quietly, but we can't do anything about the speculation around others commenting on that."
Although four-time premiership champions Sam Mitchell, Jordan Lewis and Luke Hodge are all still in elite form, Hawthorn's most pressing need could be to restock an ageing midfield.
Under Clarkson's tenure, the Hawks' targeting of established players from rival clubs has been clinical.
Dual club champion Josh Gibson (North Melbourne), champion utility Shaun Burgoyne (Port Adelaide) and retired Norm Smith medallist Brian Lake (Western Bulldogs) all became triple-premiership players at Hawthorn.
Meanwhile, ruckman Ben McEvoy (St Kilda) now has two premiership medallions and free agent James Frawley (Melbourne) played critical lock-down roles in last year's finals series.
Clarkson said picking up players from rival clubs had been a necessity in the Hawks' era of success and due to compromised drafts as the expansion clubs came into the competition.
"We've needed to do that, some of that was forced upon us in a sense, we had no access to players given our ladder position where we finished," he said.
"But also they had pre-selections with drafts, the Gold Coast and GWS sides came into the competition and had access to so much young talent, the only way to bring guys into your clubs is by rookie lists, trades or free agency, so we needed to explore that.
"We went through the process of broadening our horizon with our recruiting, that's what brought (Paul) Puopolo, (Ben) Stratton and Isaac Smith to our club as more mature-age recruits and they’ve all been beauties for us.
"So we think it's been a good thing for us in a sense in that it's forced us to look outside the square a little bit for players.
"And part of that is looking and searching for talent right across the leagues but also within the League itself – the AFL – and who might want to come and complement our group of players and help us be really, really competitive."
