The difference for Hawthorn as a unit, on top of the quality of player and coach, has been a glut of on field leaders who knew what to do and when to do it. They're able to set up play, direct and play smart football.
Across each line, we have the following guys who are long term Hawks that perform those roles and square us up:
Defense: Birchall (out), Stratton (out), Frawley (out)
Centre: Shiels (out), Smith
Forward: Gunston (out of position), Roughead
General: Burgoyne (out)
We looked listless for a reason. Of all the players that we have on our list that can stabilise the game and settle the others, we had all but 3 out and one of them was out of position most game.
Bris did a fantastic bit of analysis in the Clarko rebuild model thread where he showed our midfield getting drawn in to the ball and getting exploited on the spread. This happens with young and inexperienced sides, particularly with no old heads able to go in and settle things down.
Against Adelaide, when we had a good unit with our leaders in, we won comfortably because we were able to quickly break down the zone with effective disposal. We didn't get anywhere near as much of the ball; however, when we had it we attacked at angles, got the ball forward but to advantage of our forward line and were effective from there.
In essence, most of our woes get boiled down to our lack of leadership through the middle, inability to force a secondary stoppage when we don't get hands to the ball first and inability to spread the ball out to our skills players on the outside when we do. Shiels is a double threat of what we're missing, considering he's one of the most consistent modern day tackling mids AND someone who looks to the outside more than straight ahead.
I remember reading in an article that Mitchell was the league leader by a fair margin in assisted metres gained, meaning that he was the best player in the league at getting the ball to people in better positions. This is not a strength of Jaeger, Worpel or Cousins - all three are very much kick the ball long first players, in Cousins' case, long and high. It isn't ideal to have Cousins our 2nd leading inside 50 player, with Isaac Smith sitting at our 9th.
Our defense is good, if they had a bit more protection through the midfield they'd be relatively water tight, but no defense can stop some of the entries at speed we allow, something that I believe allowed Geelong to break their record of score from stoppage on Monday. On the flip side, our forward line is good, but having no consideration for ball placement and just putting it in long puts all our forwards at a disadvantage and makes them all panic and lead to the same spots. The ball essentially gets rebounded before our defensive zone is established and it's off to the races.
If we can rejig this and start getting the ball out to players like Henderson, Scully and Smith, we improve dramatically. Our forwards start getting better looks and it opens up leading space, and our defenders get a chance to press up the field and set up. Even if the ball spills out, with a press forward, our ability to pressure the oppo should result in plenty of clearing kicks being picked off by Impey, Sicily, Scrimshaw and Stratton who are 4 of the better intercept marking players in the league at the moment.
Anyway - long story short. Timber isn't the problem, leadership and stability is a problem. If we can get the ball out we can win against anyone. If we can execute it against Carlton, it should set us up for the more challenging weeks ahead.