GRANT Birchall says the Hawks will learn from Monday’s 19-point loss to Geelong at the MCG and use the lessons to improve on their 4-1 record to start the season.

The Hawks were no match for a fast finishing Geelong led by a powerful performance from Tom Hawkins who kicked three final quarter goals to lead his side to victory.

Geelong won the contested footy 144-134 and despite the Hawks having 27 more disposals, it was the Cats who made the most of their scoring opportunities.

The Cats led for most of the day and seemed to have the answers, with Hawthorn only leading briefly in the first and last quarters before being overrun.

Birchall says it was Geelong’s ability to win the midfield battle that hamstrung the Hawks, whose field kicking was below its usual high standards.

“We wanted to come out and play really well and get on top,” he told hawthornfc.com.au after the match.

“We knew it was going to ebb and flow quite a bit but unfortunately they won the battle through the middle of the ground and their forwards got on top towards the end of the game.”

Despite Hawkins’ performance in the final term, Birchall backed fellow defender Kyle Cheney who performed admirably on the big Cat for the first three quarters.

With the Cats in control of the game at three-quarter time and the Hawks staring down an eight-point deficit, Birchall said the Hawks tried to take more risks to win the game.

As a consequence though, Birchall said that meant Cheney was left one out with Hawkins, with his fellow defenders unable to assist like they had in the first three quarters.

“He battled really well up until three-quarter time,” Birchall said of Cheney.

“It was hard to chop out for him in the last quarter because we were trying to take the game on and be a bit more bold and consequently, left him one-on-one quite a bit.”

Birchall says the Hawks have taken valuable lessons from the loss and will aim to bounce back quickly, starting with Richmond on Sunday at the MCG.

“There’s no use getting down on yourself,” he said.

“We’ve had a really good start to the year, so we’ll learn from the mistakes we made during the game and get them right next week.

“We’ll review the game, look at the positives and look at what we need to improve on and get that right for Richmond.”

“We don’t want to lose two in a row so we’ll lick our wounds and make sure we recover right.

“They’ve beaten us the last couple of times, so we’ll have to be right on our game and come out firing.”