After five months of walking with a limp towards the finals, Hawthorn skipper Sam Mitchell insists there's finally a spring in the step of the reigning AFL premiers as judgement day looms on Saturday.

Hawthorn are bracing for a virtual sudden-death final against Essendon at the MCG this weekend - the winner of their round 22 home-and-away match securing the last top eight spot.

That club will achieve what no other team since Brisbane in 1995 has managed to do - creeping in to the AFL finals with just 10 wins for the season.

The Hawks have won just once in their past five matches, a victory over cannon fodder Richmond last weekend snapping a four-match losing streak.

Yet despite their best efforts to throw away a finals berth, the Hawks still remain a chance courtesy of Essendon losing to Fremantle in Perth last weekend to keep the door ajar.

Mitchell candidly admits the Hawks are still some way from the sort of form they should be taking into a finals campaign, but are least showing signs of improvement ahead of September.

"We're probably a little bit better, but we're probably still not playing as well as we would've liked," Mitchell said.

"The benchmark of what we know we're capable of is fairly high and we're probably not playing up to that level at the moment.

"But we're working pretty hard on the track and we're trying to get the best out of ourselves every week and every training session and every meeting of every day.

"We're on the right track, but our formline will have to have a sharp increase if we're going to have a good win this week.

"If we can get in there you never know how far we can go. If we can get to play in a finals series, it's going to be pretty exciting for some of our kids."

Mitchell said the Hawks were going into the Bombers match expecting a physical encounter, given the high stakes.

"They're not to dissimilar to us with a lot of young players and ravaged by injury through the majority of the year," he said.

"It'll be interesting - two pretty young lists going at it."

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