They've just beaten the Bulldogs, but Hawthorn are not bullies, according to key forward Jarryd Roughead.
The 2-1 Hawks face Port Adelaide on Saturday night at Adelaide Oval, with Power midfielder Hamish Hartlett claiming on Monday that the reigning premiers' physicality was akin to bullying.
"So far this year they've been incredibly physical around the contest, they've almost bullied teams into beating them," Hartlett said.
But Coleman medallist and Hawthorn veteran Roughead does not believe that his side's imposing style of play extends to bullying.
"He can call us bullies but I don't think we are. We've been playing that kind of footy for the last five or six years so it's not as if it's anything new amongst us," Roughead said before training at Waverley Park on Tuesday morning.
Hawthorn average 26 more contested possessions than their opponents across two victories this year, with their sole loss coming against Essendon - a game in which they won the that metric by just three.
Roughead - who bagged seven goals in a 70-point win against the Western Bulldogs on the weekend - said it was important the team had reclaimed their dominance after the surprise defeat to the Bombers in round two.
"The Bombers played very well against us and full credit to them but I think it was good for everyone, and it just shows that any team can be beaten on any given day. It just shows that we're back to playing our kind of footy. We were off in a few areas against the Bombers, but we knew coming back against the Dogs ... that we were going to have to be on our game."
The Adelaide Oval encounter is a re-match of last year's epic MCG preliminary final in which the Hawks survived a late Port charge to win by three points.
Circumstances are different this weekend though. There have been personnel changes on both sides, not to mention the venue. The Power have won eight of their nine games against Victorian sides at Adelaide Oval, an imposing record which includes a victory last season against Hawthorn.
Roughead, 28, missed that game, but faced Adelaide at that venue later in the year. He acknowledged the challenge posed by the deafening noise from the parochial crowd.
"They're very good with quick starts over there at Adelaide Oval, especially with that crowd that gets behind them. Once they get a bit of a run-on it makes it pretty hard to play catch-up footy," he said.
"50,000 plus Port or Adelaide fans ... it's very hard to keep them down for four quarters."
Roughead denied, however, that the size of the crowd could affect a group as experienced and decorated as the Hawks. "[I] wouldn't have thought (so) because there's 50,000 there and we've played in front of 100,000 at the 'G."
The three-time premiership forward added that emerging midfield star Bradley Hill was available for the trip to Adelaide after he was a late omission from the team that faced the Dogs. Hill copped a heavy knock in the dying stages of the Essendon match.
