Hawthorn Coach Alastair Clarkson has put his side’s upset win over GWS on Sunday down to its “enormous spirit”.
The Hawks were too strong for the Giants, with a complete four-quarter performance seeing them prevail by 33 points.
“The game was really based around the spirit and endeavour of our players and just hanging in there and trying to deny them the space that they usually use so well,” he said.
“That was a really pleasing performance.”
Following last week’s loss to Melbourne, Clarkson was determined not to overcomplicate the change of group’s output eight days later.
“The reality was we didn’t really play with that spirit last week.
“If you looked at the game last week and asked who won the game because of that edge and spirit, it was probably Melbourne.
“But this week, we were the ones who had that spirit barometer, if you like.”
With the tough decision to leave Jarryd Roughead out of the side this week, Clarkson admitted it had been a challenging few days for him and the club.
“It was a tough week with the whole Rough situation, and we thought Isaac was going to be well enough to play but he didn’t pull up well enough from the training session.
“They’re a couple of big spirit players out of our group
“They’ve driven the club in that area for a long period of time so to have both of them missing for today’s game was a little bit of a concern.
“But that’s why it was so pleasing that we were able to play with an enormous amount of spirit today.”
