Despite only beating the lowly Gold Coast by nine points, Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson was unfazed by the performance of his understrength Hawks a week out from the AFL finals.
Clarkson attributed the Hawks close result on Saturday to the fact he made eight changes for the Metricon Stadium clash in a bid to rest some stars ahead of Friday night’s qualifying final against Geelong at the MCG – their fifth straight AFL finals series.
But he expressed disappointment in allowing the Suns to register their third highest score for the season.
Gold Coast, with skipper Gary Ablett gathering 43 disposals and 13 clearances, won three of the four quarters with Hawthorn riding to a 16.10 (106) to 14.13 (97) victory on the back of a six goal to two third term.
Among those missing from Hawthorn’s best side were skipper Luke Hodge, gun forwards Lance Franklin and Cyril Rioli and tough midfielder Brad Sewell.
Clarkson said making players sit out the game allowed those on the fringe to gain valuable game time in preparation for the finals.
“We wanted to win of course, but our goal was to have as many players, 30 to 32, available to play Geelong,” Clarkson said.
“It was more about getting some game time (into players), but we didn’t have any stand out players, most of the stand out players were in the opposition.
“We allowed Gold Coast far too much control of the ball at stoppages.
“Gold Coast, I think, if they were a little bit more experienced and had more polish, which they will get over the next couple of years for sure, they would have put us to the sword a few times with the amount of inside 50s they had.”
The Suns had one more scoring shot and several other attempts which sailed well wide and failed to raise a flag.
That alone should be enough to worry Clarkson who was the first visiting coach this season to request behind-the-goal vision at halftime of a Suns match to address his side’s inefficiencies at the long break.
They trailed by nine points at quarter time and 11 points at the long break.
Clarkson admitted they had some work to do and would be hard pressed to defeat Geelong if the Cats repeated the form of Friday night when they crushed reigning premiers Collingwood.
“They’ve been the most outstanding side, consistently, over the last five years and if last night is anything to go by we are going to have to play at our very best to win,” Clarkson said.
Besides Ablett, Suns duo Brandon Matera and Harley Bennell also were pivotal in the Suns’ fight-to-the-death finish as they saved their best games for the last round of the season.
The Suns however were over run in the third term and then fell 22 points behind early in the fourth quarter.
But to their credit they kept finding a way to score and got within five points deep in time on before Hawthorn responded for a face saving win.
Gold Coast coach Guy McKenna acknowledged it as his side’s best four quarter performance for the season.
“I think we’ve shown enough to know that some of these boys have grown into men,” McKenna said.
“I can’t fault their effort for the whole season.
“But we should be excited about the pre-season and attacking it.”
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