JACK Gunston kicked a career-high six goals against North Melbourne on Friday night, but that was little consolation to the forward after the Hawks' 20-point loss.

Gunston had previously kicked five goals on four occasions – one at his former club Adelaide and three at Hawthorn – but his goal at the 25-minute mark of the final quarter against North set a new personal benchmark.

Gunston said after the game he took no real joy in kicking six goals in a losing team.

"There are always going to be some guys playing good games and some guys playing bad games," Gunston said matter-of-factly.

"It was just unfortunate we couldn't get over the line tonight."

Gunston was his usual deadeye self against the Roos, kicking 6.1, and also dished off one goal assist.

The former Adelaide Crow kicked the Hawks' first goal on Friday night after the Roos had the first five scoring shots (2.3) of the game.

Within the space of five minutes in the third term, he twice gave the Hawks the lead, the first time from a perfectly executed set shot from the boundary line at the four-minute mark.

And he kicked two of the Hawks' three goals in the final quarter when, try as they might, they could not get any closer than 19 points.

The hard-running forward finished the game with 21 possessions and seven marks, and did a power of work up the ground, even getting back to help in defence on occasion.

"You have to roll back and fill in the holes defensively, so sometimes I find myself down there," Gunston said.

"Then I've just got to work my arse off to get back up forward."

Gunston paid tribute to North's performance but said the Hawks' defensive efforts had not been up to scratch.

"If your defensive actions are down, you're normally not going to win too many games," he said.

"I think we just left too many gaps and allowed them to have too many uncontested marks and probably missed tackles. We were just not crumbing the contests the way we like either.

"And with all those things added up you're not going to win too many games."

Gunston has now kicked 36 goals in 2014, third at Hawthorn behind Jarryd Roughead (40) and Luke Breust (39).