Former Melbourne midfielder Matt Jones heads the list, while reigning best and fairest Tom Thynne indicated earlier this week he was unlikely to travel from the Gold Coast.

The club has also lost an emerging quartet to Bellarine league club Ocean Grove.

"Our priority was around retaining our existing players as much as possible, we are going to lose quite a few, Matt Jones looks like he's not coming back," Hawks' football operations manager Barry Sullivan revealed.

"Some of our really good young kids coming through the system are looking for lifestyle changes, there's Ed Dayman, Jacob Talarico, Lachie Bedendo and Bryn D'Arcy and even though they love the club, they want to experience life down there, they're a close-knit bunch and hopefully they experience that and one day come back and play for us."

Rovers have been extremely quiet with off-season signings, but there have been contributing factors.

"There's key guys, like Tom (Thynne) won our best and fairest and if he decides not to come back, we have to look at a positional replacement and Tyler Cornish (also Gold Coast-based) is in the same boat, so you can understand the dilemma we're in, but we'll wait for that dust to settle before we completely lock in," Sullivan explained.

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"It's no secret we lacked firepower up forward ... but we just have to make sure we get the right people with the right values and behaviours."

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