Jordan Lewis is set to leave the Hawks. Credit:Cameron Spencer You can see it in the eyes, the searching pleading eyes, looking for answers. They could be from the The Walking Dead but they are not they are Hawthorn fans, lost bewildered Hawthorn fans. It is the inescapable football question: what is going on at Hawthorn? The apparent fire sale of champions is a difficult one to fathom. And the Hawk fan is finding this trade period more impenetrable than any other. Why would they do this to champions? Is there a plan? The answers are difficult and easy. Hawthorn have taken a view that their era is over and they are determined not to drop like Brisbane. But one person's boldness is another's coldness.

Hawthorn have been more successful than any other club in the modern era. They have been successful by making good decisions so do not rush to condemn. Wait until the end of the trade and the draft and then wait some more. Ideally you judge this in two years not two weeks – think Tom Boyd and Ryan Griffen – but for now it is a partial mystery. Alastair Clarkson had frank conversations at year's end not only with Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis but with a clutch of others: Brendan Whitecross, Billy Hartung, Paul Puopolo and Luke Breust. Hawthorn raised the idea with Mitchell of the arrangement that has now come to pass but at the time it was first raised, they figured it only a five per cent chance of happening. Then it happened. If Mitchell wanted to stay he would have and then retired at the end of next year. Lewis was told he would not be given a contract extension at the end of next year and so he looked around and liked what he saw at Melbourne. He told the club he wanted to go there. It is the inescapable football question: what is going on at Hawthorn?

Once Mitchell happened and perhaps the Hawks felt the temperature of the reaction to his move they cooled on the idea of trading Lewis. Melbourne improved their contract offer – the third year became locked in and they added more cash each season. Lewis was sold, but Hawthorn now was not. Hawthorn would admit they handled the Lewis matter poorly but it does remain a curiosity that clubs cannot treat their contracted players the way contracted players treat their clubs (Bryce Gibbs, Brett Deledio). Hawthorn's true error was earlier this year when in the warm flush of another pending top four finish and finals series they re-signed all four of their cast of uncontracted thirty-somethings. All of them will be expected to retire at the end of next year. They should not have recommitted to all of them. Josh Gibson and Luke Hodge looked most vulnerable: Gibson finished the year looking a diminished figure; Hodge's form was patchy. But they did sign them all. Presumably Clarkson returned to his conversations with these veterans as he did with Mitchell and Lewis and asked again in light of this year's finish if they remained keen to play on.