Hawthorn's dwindling core will be eroded by one more if Luke Hodge, as expected, misses with a groin injury and Sam Mitchell does not recover from his calf injury.

Hawthorn, of course, was always to be different to its premiership side - the grand final was, pun intended, a Swansong for Lance Franklin, Brent Guerra and Max Bailey. The Hawks were always to be a club in transition, acknowledging they could not win again with the same team and hoped to bring on change within the year.

The Dockers are a side steadfast in holding on and holding together for their tilt, pinning their hopes on the same large core of players.

Hawthorn's natural transition has compounded the clusters of injuries they are confronting. The Hodge-Mitchell double hurts when added to Brian Lake, Ben Stratton, Brad Sewell and the lingering absence of Ryan Schoenmakers. Lake will miss again, Stratton probably will, too, and Sewell, though some question his hold on a place in the best 22 still, will be out.

The loss of last year's Norm Smith medallist will be most keenly felt after Hodge for the game-reading intercept defender salted the wound of a side that had found scoring difficult in the grand final.

Fremantle, perhaps as significantly as having Hodge or Lake missing, will be without Nat Fyfe, who has been banned for two weeks by the match review panel.

One side does not look the same, the other looks the same but is trying to get their players to look a little different. Just a little.

The grand final rematch is ordinarily a re-contest of champion and challenger with the pecking order established. This rematch offers a champion less seasoned and more vulnerable than the challenger.

The psychology yet has shifted. The Dockers enter Friday night's grand final return bout with a growing expectation that they win and that Hawthorn is vulnerable to them, despite what the bookmakers might say.

The question will be whether this psychology extends to the Dockers players. Does expectation help or hinder them?

Since 2008 Fremantle has beaten Hawthorn once - in the elimination final of 2010 - but Ross Lyon's new and improved Fremantle has yet to defeat the Hawks.

Last year, before finally defeating Geelong, Hawthorn at length considered the bogey it could not break. The Hawks came up with myriad reasons why they could not down the Cats but in essence it came down to the idea they were facing more than a side. It was the only way to explain why players would repeatedly miss easy shots at goal, easy kicks to one another.

''Geelong seems to be in our heads,'' Chris Fagan wrote of the Cats ahead of that match, as reported in Michael Gordon's book of their premiership year, Playing to Win.

Grand finalists carry between them a history that is mental.

Tendai Mzungu was, predictably, at pains to dismiss the idea of the significance of the rematch.

''We won't be focusing on redemption,'' he said. ''The fact is on the day they were a lot better than us and they deserved to win so we don't owe them anything or anything like that. For us it's a non-issue.''

He is yet to watch a replay of the match.

Ben McEvoy was recruited for this match. For these matches. He was recruited to help expedite the idea of change without pain. Change while remaining in contention. He confronts the behemoth of Aaron Sandilands who has monstered his first two opposition teams.

Jordan Lewis was phlegmatic at the Sandilands prospect and in Clarkson-speak reasoned that like dealing with their under-sized defenders it was a whole-of-team problem.

''Every side would go into a game against Sandilands expecting not to win their fair share of hit-outs. You've really got to make sure you've got the guys on the ground to combat that,'' Lewis said.

''We're quite a skilled side, so we tend to use the ball quite well and we also think we're one of the great defensive sides. So they've got to try to find a way to score against us.''

In more Clarkson-speak, there was the gentle sting in the tail from Lewis reminding Fremantle they've got to score more.

Hawthorn has to look different this time around by virtue of who is out there … and who is not. Fremantle, too, though needs to look a little different, even if their players remain almost the same.