SAM MITCHELL admits that Luke Hodge is near peerless when it comes to leading men on the footy field.

"Precisely!" shout the doubters of Hawthorn's wisdom in favouring the

pro's-pro over the man's-man when the club picked its new captain for 2008.

But with a handful of mentors and a stack of books, Mitchell is tackling his relatively recent posting at the head of the Hawks' playing list in the same way he has approached any other football task — earnestly, studiously, determinedly and with a distinct sense of self-assurance.

If punters are still debating who Hawthorn's "spiritual" leader is, or commentators mistaking which of Hodge and Mitchell has the title — just as Nathan Buckley did in a match call last weekend — Mitchell doesn't care.

"On field Luke is a fantastic leader. As good a leader as there is in the competition probably," he says.

"I'm not going to be jealous of a teammate, I'm glad people view him as a great leader because he is.

"Luke and I work really well together. We have very different personalities but we've got the same end goal. I don't think I'm a significantly better leader than he is, it's just I've got the title."

It's Monday afternoon and the Hawks have suffered a rare loss. In the cafe at Hawthorn's Waverley Park headquarters Mitchell is drinking coffee — "my only vice", he says. He pulls a book out of his training bag, Management Secrets of The New England Patriots, a tome that details the inner workings of the American NFL side. The Hawks' football manager, Mark Evans, gave Mitchell the copy over the pre-season.

The 25-year-old midfielder didn't just read it, he inhaled it.

Flashes of bright pink blaze from the book as he flicks through the pages — passages Mitchell has highlighted. Some lines are double highlighted in pink and blue — "Each individual dedicated himself to daily improvement" is one example.

Presumably, the statement is not one Mitchell needed to learn from as much as one that he has lived by. He was judged too short and too slow to cut it at AFL level before Hawthorn finally took a punt and drafted him from the Box Hill Hawks in 2002 — the year he turned 20. To the doubters back then, he'd be well within his rights to deliver a Mark Williamsesque "you were wrong" now. Mitchell is running equal first with Gary Ablett in the Age's Footballer of the Year award.

The Hawks might have been round 13 losers, but are expected to be in the September action up to their ears. Premierships, not just a premiership, are expected to be delivered by the Hawks in the not too distant future and Mitchell would be the man holding the cup aloft.

Helping him meet that end is another book Mitchell has on the go, albeit one with an unlikely sounding title for a would-be premiership captain — Emotional Intelligence."It has been really helpful about empathy and understanding other people and how to get the best out of them. Sometimes it's not about what a person says or does, it's about what they're trying to say and what they're trying to do," he says.

Learning to be a player figurehead that is more sympathetic towards his peers — in particular those who do not always live, train and play by the same high standards Mitchell does — has posed the greatest challenge. An imbalance on this front has the potential to divide teams.

"It's the part of the job that I've had to work the hardest on," Mitchell says.

"Sometimes having that understanding of people is not the footballer's way. There's the 'my way or the highway' approach and early on in my career I was probably a bit like that.

"I was probably a bit too hard on people and didn't have the understanding that other players might have wanted to do things right but they didn't know how, or they weren't educated, or they weren't as full on about their footy as I was."

All noble sounding stuff, but another line Mitchell has highlighted in his New England Patriots book is a quote from one of their players: "I'm not trying to be best friends with everyone. I came to be a professional and to win". In conversation, Mitchell uses the word "professional" more than most of his AFL peers use the word "obviously".

He thinks Australian Rules footballers have much to learn from their counterparts playing in competitions internationally as far as professionalism goes.

You would think it would lead him to be scathing about a recent string of events involving the biggest name on Hawthorn's list — the key words were Lance Franklin, nightclub ejection, alcohol and complaining women. The my-way-or-the-highway Mitchell of old might have been, but not so the empathetic skipper.

"Lance went out with a couple of teammates and wanted to have a couple of beers after a loss and we've got no problem with that," he says.

"We don't expect to take these guys' social lives away from them completely.

"He was surrounded by, I think, six or seven other Hawthorn players, including Chance Bateman who's one of our leaders. So when we look at those things we're pretty happy … a couple of them were stone sober and drove him home.

"If you're surrounding yourself with people from the same point of view as you and who are looking after you, then there's not much more you can do if he's being harassed by people.

"We didn't think Buddy was out of line when he got escorted out of the nightclub. He hadn't breached what we were trying to do, so we didn't have to deal with it in a heavy-handed way."

There have been other notable blips this year the Hawks would rather hadn't happened — president Jeff Kennett's transformation into an opposition medical expert before the team met North Melbourne last Saturday, the Mark Williams choking gesture controversy, and the coach's hot exchange with a journalist in Tasmania that was caught on camera.

" 'Clarko' (coach Alastair Clarkson) understands that what he did didn't reflect well on the group and he put his hand up in front of the players and said 'I'm sorry about that, I'm working harder to try and control that type of thing and it won't happen again'," Mitchell says.

"With two or three things this year the media has painted us in a darker type light … let's try and get a bit of realism and perspective back into it.

"Clarko spoke that way towards a journalist, he shouldn't have done it, Mark Williams made a choking gesture, he shouldn't have done it. We've had some wins too!" On-field, in their fourth season under Clarkson, the Hawks are enjoying regular rewards and Mitchell can laugh at the flak both club and then-untried coach copped only a couple of years back.

With its trademark rolling defensive zone in full swing, Hawthorn is being hailed as a team that is revolutionising football and Clarkson the man who orchestrated it.

If Mitchell is especially looking forward to testing that all out against best-in-the-business Geelong in a highly-anticipated round 17 meeting, he is not letting on.

Yet, without hesitation, he divulges that he pictures his team participating on grand final day this year.

"I think you have to picture yourself being successful if you want to be successful," Mitchell says.

And the mature VFL recruit turned AFL captain is living proof.

THE THOUGHTS OF SAM MITCHELL

ON JEFF KENNETT"The footy club's a much better place with him in it and sometimes we're going to have to cop a bit of flak about what he says. But 95% of the stuff he says is leading this footy club in a good direction."

ON LANCE FRANKLIN"We want to look after the individuals within our company. What benefit is there for the Hawthorn Football Club or for Lance Franklin by him doing media? There's none. The only upside to it is that people will maybe love him more. But the risk then is that there's further to fall."

PREMIERSHIP TILT"I think you have to picture yourself being successful if you want to be successful. We can be unhappy even when we've won games this year if we're not happy with the performance."

ON MISBEHAVING HAWKS"With the amount of scrutiny we have on us, with two or three things this year, the media has painted us in a darker type light. Let's try and get a bit of realism and perspective back into it."

ON ACCEPTING A REPRIMAND AND RULING HIMSELF OUT OF THE BROWNLOW"They tried to paint me in a nice, pretty light, like I was a real team man, but there's not a player in the competition who would have even thought about (contesting) it. Who's going to contest something when they're even going to miss a game just so they might have one small chance of winning a Brownlow Medal? How ridiculous! I wasn't going to get off."