ALASTAIR Clarkson can continue as Hawthorn coach for as long as he wants, Hawks president Andrew Newbold says. 

Clarkson coached the Hawks to a premiership for the fourth time on Saturday, when he led his team to an imposing 46-point win over West Coast in the 2015 Grand Final.

The triumph took Clarkson past John Kennedy snr and Allan Jeans as the Hawks' most successful coach, with the legendary pair having presided over three flags – Kennedy in 1971, 1976 and 1978, Jeans in 1983, 1986 and 1989. 

Clarkson took over as Hawthorn coach at the end of 2004 and led a young Hawks team to the club's first flag in 17 years in 2008. 

The next four seasons would have their share of on-field heartbreak, however, particularly in 2011 when the Hawks lost a preliminary final in the dying seconds against Collingwood and the following year when they lost the Grand Final in the dying minutes against the Sydney Swans.

But they've bounced back hard from those disappointments, and on Saturday became just the sixth team in VFL/AFL history to win three premierships in a row. 

In his 11th season at Hawthorn, Clarkson showed no signs of growing stale. 

He is contracted to the end of next year, but Newbold told AFL.com.au on Saturday evening that the club would look to secure Clarkson beyond 2016 during the upcoming off-season. 

Asked how long Clarkson could remain Hawthorn coach, Newbold had a simple answer. 

"He's prepared his whole life for this career, so he'll go as long as he wants to," Newbold said in the Hawks' rooms after the Grand Final. 

Former Hawthorn president Ian Dicker oversaw the committee that chose Clarkson ahead of club favourite Gary Ayres 11 years ago.

It was a surprise appointment at the time and Dicker admitted on Saturday evening he could not have envisaged at the time that Clarkson would preside over such a successful era.

"I did think we could win one because that was the nature of the guy, he was a winner. But to win four and to win three in a row, I couldn't have dreamt of it," Dicker said.

Like Newbold, Dicker sees no need to put an end date on Clarkson's reign at Hawthorn, saying the senior coach's ability to hand-pick quality support staff would ensure his longevity. 

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"From a distance, I think he has shown he is a great selector of men," Dicker says. 

"You look at the people he has chosen as assistant coaches who have now gone on to be coaches. He told me very early that Adam Simpson was bound to be a coach. 

"He picked them all, so if he can keep picking (good) people I think he can (continue) because that's a great skill that not many people have – in life, in business or in football.

"He's a great picker of people. That ability to pick people can allow him to keep going."

Newbold said Clarkson would be the first person to acknowledge the key roles his coaching staff, football manager Chris Fagan and fitness boss Andrew Russell had played in the Hawks' extraordinary recent run.

The Hawks' sustained success under Clarkson is remarkable in an era when there are 18 teams and a draft system that's designed to spread the premierships around. 

Newbold says the Hawks are determined to defy football gravity again next year, when they will bid to equal the record four successive premierships won by Jock McHale's Collingwood 'machine' team from 1927-30.

"We've got to improve, every year we've got to improve everything we do," Newbold says. 

"It's what we said at the start of this year and the year before.

"We'll just reload, have a rest and enjoy it, and then see how we can get better."

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