ALASTAIR Clarkson has lamented Hawthorn's uncharacteristic skill errors in a 32-point qualifying final loss to West Coast, with his side now facing three cut-throat finals to clinch a historic premiership three-peat.

The Hawks weren't their usual clinical selves on Friday night at Domain Stadium and made too many simple mistakes to halt the Eagles' runaway momentum in the second and third quarters.

West Coast strangled the Hawks in front of a raucous home crowd, restricting the AFL's highest-scoring outfit to just nine majors, and soared to a 50-point lead at three-quarter time before the visitors' late fightback.

"They were pretty good and we were pretty bad, really," Clarkson said post match.

"They're an impressive side and have been all year, and we didn’t bring our best footy tonight, which was unfortunate. They handled the conditions and the oval a lot better than we did … we didn't perform anywhere near as well as we'd like."

The Hawks had almost as many disposals as the Eagles (339-342) and won the clearances (50-40), but failed to capitalise and fell 10 inside 50s short of the home side.

"Just the little half chances that we had, especially throughout the course of the first half, fumbled balls, missed kicks, missed handballs, which was just so unlike us, so we'll back our boys in and go again," Clarkson said.

"The whole idea of working really, really hard to get a double-chance is if you do have an off night like we had tonight, you get another go at it."

The Hawks will now face either the Western Bulldogs or Adelaide in a semi-final at the MCG next weekend, potentially without important forward Jack Gunston.

The athletic big man appeared to twist his right leg underneath his body in the final term and had ice on the inside of his knee after the match, although there is some uncertainty about the nature of the injury.

"I think it's ankle, but we'll get that scanned throughout the course of the week and see what the severity is," Clarkson said.

"It didn't look great and he obviously couldn't come back onto the ground, but it was late in the game anyway so we weren't going to take the risk.

"But he looked pretty proppy, so we're just going to have to wait and see how that goes, but those sort of things happen in games of footy. If he's no good then he won't play, and we'll bring someone else in to try and take his place."

Taking his place just six days after suffering a medial injury, speedy wingman Isaac Smith was relatively quiet with 16 touches and a goal, although Clarkson pointed out he was far from the Hawks' only "passenger".

Sam Mitchell (35 disposals, 10 clearances) was superb all match, but had few teammates helping carry the load – although skipper Luke Hodge (29 touches, one goal) lifted in the second half.

"We had a lot of guys that didn't perform greatly tonight, so in terms of his (Smith's) individual form, he did OK without doing great, but he had a fair few passengers with him as well," Clarkson said.

"In terms of his knee, we made the call on Friday morning that he was OK to play. He's pulled up fine from the game, I'm led to believe."

Clarkson backed the Hawks to respond to the defeat and said his side wouldn't look further ahead than next week's semi-final, despite knowing the road to a fourth-straight Grand Final would be via Perth or Sydney in a preliminary final.

"We won't worry about that. We'll just worry about trying to knock off either Western Bulldogs or Adelaide and worry about the following week when we get there – if we do," he said.

"This group has worked really, really hard for this footy club for a long, long period of time and we'd won our last six finals, I think, so this is hopefully going to be an aberration and we get back on the winners' list next week."