HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson says the high expectations surrounding his side after the 89-point win over the Sydney Swans is nothing new and it's business as usual for the club.
The Hawks have beaten fellow premiership contenders Fremantle and the Swans by a combined margin of 161 points in the past fortnight, but Clarkson knows the hype that comes with such results means nothing for the rest of 2015.
"We've won the last two titles and that means there's some pressure that comes with that, and I'd like to think that our players and our club are level headed enough to cope with that," Clarkson said.
"We just play each week as it comes before us, we know that our goal at the start of the year was to finish in the top four and we're just happy that we're adding up the wins and hopefully get ourselves in a good position by round 23 to have a good shot at it.
"You don't win Grand Finals in July, we've got to be playing our best footy in September.
"We're pleased that over the past couple of weeks that we've been able to account for two really, really strong opponents, who we have enormous regard for."
Clarkson was full of praise for star forward Jarryd Roughead, who returned from a skin cancer scare to kick five goals.
The three-time premiership Hawk booted a goal in the opening term, added two in the third, and kicked two in the last as the visitors ran all over the Swans.
"He wanted to play last week, but we didn't have the surgical clearance from the medicos, and so that meant that he was able to get a rally good week of training under his belt," Clarkson said.
"He worked his way into the game really nicely, and gave us some flexibility in our front half.
"He's a very, very important player for us needless to say, but we were really happy with what he was able to do after his couple of week absence."
The Hawks' scoring options seem endless with Jack Gunston (four goals), Cyril Rioli (three), Luke Breust (two) and Ben McEvoy (two) all causing the home side plenty of headaches.
"It's just the efficiency of our forward structure in terms of being able to crate a contest in there, and give our small players in particular an opportunity at ground level," Clarkson said.
"You know Rioli, (Paul) Puopolo, Breust, even the bigger guys like (Ryan) Schoenmakers and Roughead applied really good ground level pressure, and that helped us enormously in being able to be efficient with our scoring when we went inside 50."
RELATED
Hawks leapfrog Swans with 89-point win
