Hawthorn coach Sam Mitchell has ramped up his pursuit of Tom Barrass, meeting the West Coast premiership defender in Perth.
As Hawks players flew home following Sunday’s win over Adelaide, Mitchell boarded a flight bound for WA.
It’s there he met with Barrass whose stocks are rising as one of the AFL’s most in-demand players.
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Hawthorn declined to comment on Tuesday when contacted about Mitchell’s trip west.
The face-to-face catch-up came less than 24 hours after the Hawks smashed the Crows to move within striking distance of the top-eight.
Despite three years to run on his contract at the Eagles, the 28-year-old’s meeting with Mitchell is the clearest sign yet, he is considering his football future.
The Western Bulldogs are also heavily pursuing Barrass, who is widely seen among the game’s best key backs.
Mitchell was a premiership assistant coach when Barrass and the Eagles won the 2018 flag.
Current Hawks forwards coach Adrian Hickmott was also part of Adam Simpson’s premiership coaching panel.
The Western Bulldogs hold a strong link with current backline coach Daniel Pratt the direct line coach for Barrass in 2018.
Barrass last month addressed the speculation surrounding his future when fronting the media.
“I don’t read the media or the social media, I usually find out when I’m sitting in front of you guys,” he said at a press conference.
“It happens every year and it’s hardly a story … AFL clubs chasing established key position player … it’s just the currency of football and I wouldn’t be reading into it too much.”
Mitchell has quickly become the AFL’s most active coach in targeting rival players.
He has been in direct contact with St Kilda unrestricted free agent Josh Battle and out-of-contract Western Bulldogs midfielder Bailey Smith in the past 12 months.
Mitchell also led a delegation of Hawks to Sydney last month to Sydney to meet with unrestricted GWS free agent Harry Perryman, who is more likely to join Port Adelaide should he leave the Giants.
And it was a meeting with Jack Ginnivan at Mitchell’s house last October that clinched the premiership Pie’s move to Waverley Park.
Having taken a top-10 pick in each of the last four drafts, Hawthorn is open to trading its first selection this year which currently sits at No.10.
Any move for Barrass would require at least one first-round selection.
The Hawks have long been courting Smith, however rivals hold a growing expectation that he will request a trade to Geelong.
Should Smith opt for the Cats it would leave the Hawks with their first pick to target Barrass. If Battle was to request a move to Waverley Park, he would come for nothing as a free agent.
The Hawks have been in the market for a key back for some time, running second to Essendon last year for free agent Ben McKay who departed North Melbourne.
A double-pairing of Barrass and Battle would allow Mitchell the flexibility of playing captain James Sicily as a forward in 2025 with Mitch Lewis to miss a large chunk of the season recovering from a ruptured ACL.
The Dogs are trying to bolster their defensive half with full-back Liam Jones to enter the final year of his current contract as a 34-year-old in 2025.
Early last year, Barrass explored a move to Sydney with the Swans’ belief growing throughout 2023 he would request a trade, only for him to only backflip and pledge his commitment to West Coast.
Barrass was informally told the Eagles would look to renegotiate his deal, which has been put on the backburner.
Last year CEO Trevor Nisbett and list manager Rohan O’Brien both departed the Eagles, replaced respectively by Don Pyke and Matthew Clarke.
Unlike a large portion of other clubs, West Coast has traditionally avoided including uplift clauses in players’ contracts in line with the League’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
For example, the contract Barrass signed in 2021 until the end of 2027 won’t automatically increase from 2024-2027 compared to a host of rival players who have wage rises in line with the increased salary cap.
Player wages would have risen by around 30 per cent by the end of 2027.