MITCH Hahn is talking about the buzz of finally playing in a final after 130-plus games of AFL football when Western Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade walks past, sticks his head in the door and says: "Tell him about the pizzas."

It's an oldie, but clearly still a goody, both chuckling heartily. "When I first got here we did their skinfolds mid-year and his started to go up," Eade explains later. "I remember asking one of the assistants about it and they said: 'Oh, that happens with Mitch every year', like it was just accepted.

"I found out he was getting a bit lazy with his diet, eating pizzas and too much takeaway, so we dropped him for two weeks and it was a bit of a shock to the system."

It didn't take Hahn long to clean up his act, but the irony isn't lost on him now after every match when the warm-downs are complete and the pizzas come out. Says Eade: "He always says: 'Now you're asking me to eat them. A couple of years ago you were telling me not to'."

But if that was the only evidence of, as the coach puts it, "early on, not quite totally grasping the level of professionalism required", it's a chink in the armour long since ironed out.

Coming to the end of his ninth season, Hahn is a coach's dream. Hard-working, committed, versatile and a player who lives and breathes, as second nature, the sort of team ethos their mentors constantly preach.

The Bulldogs have more skilled players than Hahn, certainly more graceful kicks of the football, and smoother runners, but few more reliable barometers of their hardness at the contest and, as a usual consequence, their success, than the strongly built 99-kilogram utility.

For the past couple of years, his bullocking, no-frills grunt had been used midfield. That was when he wasn't injured, a knee reconstruction forcing him to miss the Bulldogs' finals campaign in 2006, a dislocated shoulder ending last year's campaign.

But fit again this season, it's been up forward where Hahn's hardness has been just as useful. He's equal third on the Dogs' goal-kicking table, equal third for goal assists, third for tackles.

Like most of his teammates, Hahn had an ordinary evening against Hawthorn last week. But tonight against Sydney, if his returns are closer to those averages, the Bulldogs will probably win. As Eade puts it: "I don't think he needs nearly as many possessions as other players to be as influential a player for us."

Not that you'll hear that sort of wrap from the man himself. Hahn cheerfully admits he gets a bit embarrassed by all this barometer stuff. "I'm not the biggest fan of it," he says. "I know my place in the team. It's all about the team for me and that's the way it's always been."

An injured Hahn paid his own fare and accommodation to get to Perth two Septembers ago for the Bulldogs' semi-final against West Coast, what turned out to be veteran Dog Rohan Smith's last game. Now it's another absent veteran, the injured Scott West, for whom Hahn feels he's stepping out, too.

"It's all about working for each other. I look at Geelong and when you see guys like Cam Mooney and Steve Johnson having a competition not about who can kick the most goals, but who can give away the most, you know you're on the right track."

Hahn seemed almost embarrassed the other week when he did the bulk of the goalkicking himself, a haul of six against Essendon doubling his previous best. "Not many people expected it — including myself," he laughs.

But it was a return further vindicating the lengths to which he has continued to go to improve the fundamentals of his game. Hahn knows he's never going to kick the ball like a Ryan Griffen or Lindsay Gilbee, but the constant work on his skills has clearly been paying off.

"I think this is the first year that I've kicked more goals than points," he says. "Wayne Campbell (forwards coach) makes us have at least 20 shots at goal per week and you have to write down your score where everyone can see it, and that makes it a bit more competitive. You don't want to be the lowest on that sheet every week."

Growing up in Brisbane with two football-playing older brothers, but not a lot of mates who played the game, there was no TAC Cup to hone developing skills. But football in Queensland had its own benefits when it came to the contest.

"Most of the Queenslanders who come down here to play have that hard edge about them, because when you're 17, you're playing with men, against older, bigger-bodied guys," Hahn says.

At 27 and with nearly a decade-long career behind him, Hahn is one himself now. But the prospect of a second AFL team in his home state doesn't interest him at all. Signed to another three-year contract last year, Hahn has plenty of unfinished business in a place he belongs.

"I want to be a one-club player, that's really important to me," he says. "The Western Bulldogs have given me the opportunity to play footy. I owe them, they don't owe me. They showed me massive faith by giving me a three-year deal when I'd played 20 games in two years, so I've got to repay the favour."

Some trademark bullocking, tackling and one-per centers this evening and he will have gone a long way towards doing just that.

A big game from the consummate team man and the Doggies are halfway home. Then maybe Hahn might be able to celebrate with an extra slice of pizza or two.