ORDINARILY in footy, the master might wait until after a game before catching up with a prized and popular pupil against whom he has just gone into battle.

But not Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson, who revealed that he spent time with Brendon Bolton on Friday night, barely 36 hours before they matched wits at Etihad Stadium when Hawthorn played Carlton.

Speaking after his Hawks spanked Bolton's Blues by 72 points on Sunday, Clarkson said the Blues were going down the right path, despite having won just one game this year.

"It's easy to dig the boots in," he said. "They're on the right track as a footy club and it's really, really hard yards.

"I can recall being in a very similar position in 2005, and what you need to be is strong internally in terms of the direction you're going.

"What people need to give some consideration to is not the win-loss column but the number of players who have been exposed to having to play when they've had so many senior guys out injured. That's made it really hard going. They've been crippled by injury and they were again today."

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Bolton was an assistant coach at the Hawks from 2009 to late in 2015. In 2014, when Clarkson missed five games because of illness, Bolton stood in as interim senior coach and the Hawks went 5-0 in that time.

They are friends, as are their wives, and their catch-up ahead of the weekend was purely a social engagement, although as Clarkson said, "We didn't talk much footy given we were going to box-on today."

Clarkson said he believed the Blues have got things right on the field.

"On the field, it's been a battle because they haven't been able to get that continuity and stability, but once they have it they're going to be on the right track in terms of winning games," he said.

"Too many in the football world judge it just on wins and losses, and that's tough on them."

For his part, Bolton played down the pre-game catch-up, but his respect and affection for Clarkson clearly remains undiminished.

"Clarko's lived it," Bolton said. "He's been around for such a long time now, he's seen it all. He can talk with a strong understanding.

"I'm not going to talk for him, I'm worried about our club, but you've got to go through playing young kids, challenging and celebrating them every week, holding really high standards and irrespective of the adversity with injury and so forth, we'll continue to do that."