Alastair Clarkson has highlighted the importance of Hawthorn's round-12 victory over Adelaide but believes it's too early to suggest the Hawks have found some momentum.
 
The 29-point win in front of 50,000 fans took the Hawks to seven wins from eleven matches in a sometimes stuttering first half of the season which sees them one win outside the top four.
 
"This was a really important game for us," Clarkson said following the match.
 
"Given the stakes for both sides, both six and four, it doesn't seem like much, but there's a big difference between getting to seven and four and just sitting back at six and five.
 
"We still need to play some better footy, but more importantly we just got the four points."

The win came without goals to either Jarryd Roughead or Jack Gunston, and Clarkson lauded the grinding nature of his team's effort.

"We just had to find a way," he said.

"I think 2014 sometimes gets forgotten in terms of the home and away season. Everyone just looks at 'oh well, Hawthorn won the premiership, so they must have been the dominant side in the competition all year'.

"We actually weren't.

"We had to really grind wins last year and we're probably have to going to do the same again this year."

The Hawks withstood an Adelaide surge in the third quarter as the Crows slammed on four of the first five goals of the second half to take the lead.

The lead change forced the premiers into gear with goals from Jonathan Ceglar, David Hale and skipper Luke Hodge largely restoring the Hawks' lead.

Clarkson highlighted the work of Hawthorn's defence in helping redress the balance after the Crows early third quarter dominance.

"If you look through history, good sides have had really strong and experienced defences. We like to think ours is in that mode right now,” Clarkson said.

That defence included former Demon James Frawley who, in his seventh game for the Hawks, endured a tough battle with Adelaide skipper Taylor Walker until Walker left the field in the third quarter with a corked thigh.

Walker had kicked one goal and been lively before leaving the field.

"We're still finding our way a little with 'Chippa' Frawley down there because he's just new to the system and is taking some time … but that was the same with (Josh) Gibson, it took him twelve months, it took Lakey (Brian Lake) twelve months," Clarkson said.