After teething problems at the start of this season, the defender has slotted well into the Hawks defence and will play a crucial role in Friday night's semi-final against the Crows at Adelaide Oval.
This is Adelaide's first finals series since they lost the 2017 grand final and much has been made of that being a factor when Collingwood outclassed them in last week's qualifying final.
If the Crows lose again, they will be the first minor premiers to bow out in straight sets since North Melbourne in 1983.
Barrass said Hawthorn likewise are "relatively immature" September combatants, but he likes what he sees at Waverley in terms of the way the team has been built and managed.
"You look around when you're at this stage of the year and every player is good - every single player who's on the field is just genuinely good.
"And there are probably two or three who aren't on the field who could be.
"(Our) list is in really good shape and that was very similar to when we had success at West Coast."
Hawthorn made the finals last year - losing the epic semi-final to Port, also at Adelaide Oval - for the first time since 2018.
"There's a lot of pressure in every game at this time of year and that's why people place value on finals experience," Barrass said.
"There's just no substitute for it. The contest is 30 per cent hotter than it would be in season and that affects all other aspects of the game.
"They're certainly higher-pressure games. Finals experience counts, but in the grand scheme of things we're relatively immature in terms of finals still as well.
"So we're looking to build our reputation and brand this time of year."
Barrass said at the start of this season, he had to learn how to combine with fellow key defenders James Sicily and Josh Battle.
But now they are a formidable unit, ready for the huge challenge of quelling the Adelaide triple-threat of All-Australian Riley Thilthorpe, Taylor Walker and Darcy Fogarty.
"We're certainly gelling a lot better than we did previously. Josh and I probably took a little bit to fit in and read the room on how the boys play together," Barrass said of Battle, who also joined Hawthorn this season from St Kilda..
"I obviously played alongside Jeremy McGovern (at West Coast) for a long time - we're both jumping-type players.
"Josh and James aren't really jumping-type players, so we took a bit to figure each other out.
"But it's been great, the last eight-to-10 weeks, we feel like we've built some cohesion.
"(Jack) Scrimshaw has complemented us really nicely ... hopefully we can carry that into this weekend."
Barrass, who is WA born-and-bred, said the move to the other side of the continent had been interesting and described the last 12 months as "a whirlwind".
"You get a pretty good audit on what it means to be a West Australian, when you come over to Victoria. It's a really unique thing," he said.
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