‘Thank God’: Hawks forward winning confidence battle
Roger Vaughan |
Finally, Mabior Chol believes in himself.
And as they prepare to return to their AFL semi-final “scene of the crime” this Friday night against Adelaide, he says Hawthorn now believe that they belong as well.
Two days after his late heroics in the elimination final win over GWS, Chol spoke candidly on Monday about his struggles with self-confidence.
The Hawks key forward kicked the last two goals of the game, first hustling All-Australian defender Sam Taylor off the ball and minutes later coolly nailing a booming snap.
Chol credited small forwards Connor MacDonald and Nick Watson for getting in his ear during the game and urging him to stay focused.
“They came up to me – ‘You’re built for this and you can definitely win us this game – your moment is coming up, just make sure you’re ready for it’,” Chol said.
“That’s what gave me that self-belief – maybe it’s coming and I just have to be prepared for that.
“I’m very, super-grateful to have those boys on my side.”
The 28-year-old Chol has not done it easy in his AFL career, first being delisted from Richmond, then traded to Hawthorn from Gold Coast.
He has undergone extensive work with club development coach Jenni Screen, psychologist Ed Barlow, and assistant coach Adrian Hickmott on the mental side of his game.
“It is probably something that I’ve struggled a fair bit with in my journey so far, but I’ve done a lot of work with it,” said Chol, who was mostly proud of his performance against GWS.
“I was lucky enough to be in the right spot at the right time.
“Sometimes as footballers you do tend to look more at the negative than the positive.
“But for me, I was quite surprised. Having watched my review today, I felt like I did a lot of good things with my defensive pressure and that’s something I pride myself on.
“On the weekend, I felt like I wasn’t really having the impact going forward in attack – that’s probably where I was beating myself up a fair bit.”
Chol’s raw reaction after the last goal of the game showed how much it meant to him.
“If you guys saw how I celebrated, it was more of a relief,” he said.
“People do say I look quite nonchalant with everything I do, but I was quite passionate at that time – ‘Thank God, that’s done now’.”
MacDonald told AAP that Chol was not the only one rapt with his key goal at the end of the game.
“It was just pure joy – you see the photos, all of us young guys are going up to him, we’re going off our heads,” he said.
“It’s been great for him. He just wanted to come to Hawthorn and have people believe in him.
“Wholeheartedly, all the coaches and players believe in him.”
Now to Adelaide Oval, where Hawthorn lost an incident-packed semi-final to Port a year ago.
This time, Chol said there was a different feeling about their prospects.
“As a football club, last year was probably more just trying to get there,” he said
“But now as a group, we believe that we belong out there now on the big stage.
“For us, now it’s more about he we can prepare well for games and get the result we want.
“We are definitely ready to go one step closer this year.”
AAP
