Hawthorn's department of youth is a key reason why Shaun Burgoyne wants another AFL season.
The 338-game veteran will meet with the club in the coming weeks to discuss his future.
He has played every game this season and while veterans such as Luke Hodge and Sam Mitchell are on the verge of retirement, Burgoyne has made it clear he would love to extend his outstanding career into 2018.
Sunday's loss to Richmond ended their faint finals hopes, but Hawthorn have shown plenty in the last couple of months.
After a horror start to the season, they switched their focus to giving younger players plenty of experience and changing their game style.
Sunday was only their second loss in the last seven games.
Burgoyne said the Hawks veterans needed the enthusiasm and potential of youngsters such as Ryan Burton.
"The older players, we bring the experience - those younger players bring the excitement and the enthusiasm," Burgoyne said.
"You see them take on the game and forging a career for themselves. It does give you that bit of spark.
"Hopefully you can help out a little bit here and there - generally it's a bit of we take a bit off them, they take a bit off us.
"You do want to be a part of that, to some extent."
Regardless of the Richmond loss, Burgoyne said the Hawks feel they are on the right track.
He noted that Sunday gave them a glimpse of their new-look defence, with Hodge suspended and Ben Stratton, Grant Birchall and James Frawley all injured.
"It's obviously disappointing to lose, but we have a couple more weeks to really knuckle down," he said.
"(The Richmond loss) just goes to show where we're at as a team and we just re-focus."
The Hawks are in a much better state than their 1-5 start to the season, which featured three heavy losses.
"It was obviously a challenging time ... we had a few players coming from other clubs, a couple of senior players leave, tweaking game style," Burgoyne said.
"The mood wasn't too good when we were losing, but we changed things up, brought younger players in and the excitement levels came up."
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