Hawthorn star's remarkable act of finals toughness revealed

Shaun Burgoyne has opened up on the nasty injury he carried through Hawthorn’s finals campaign.

The Hawks veteran copped plenty of flack for a disappointing couple of games as Hawthorn were sent packing from the finals in straight sets.

He had just 17 disposals against Richmond, then 13 against Melbourne in Hawthorn’s two losses at the MCG.

But Burgoyne has now revealed the massive reason for his lacklustre showing.

The 35-year-old was playing with broken ribs and had to have injections in order to play.

“Still, when you step out on the line, you put your hand up to say your fit and you want to play. That’s exactly what I did,” Burgoyne told The Marngrook Footy Show.

“It was disappointing to hurt myself, but when you think to yourself you’re right to play, you try and to play and you’ve got to commit to the team.

“It was a little bit difficult to play, but that’s just an excuse, you still have to play well under injury.

“A lot of players have some kind of injury concern at the end of the year.”

Burgoyne also opened up on what went wrong for the Hawks.

“You’ve got to rely on everyone, not just one or two players, and that’s where we fell down,” Burgoyne said.

“We had far too many players down — me being one of them, being down on my performance. You can’t compete against the best teams when you have so many players down.

“They (the Hawks youngsters) did find it hard, but a lot of us did … it’s a little bit hard on the younger guys, the older guys have to play good footy to show hose younger guys. But it’s going to be a valuable experience for those younger guys.

“Hopefully it sits in their guts and burns in their guts when they come back to pre-season training.”