IT WAS the moment Hawthorn put one hand on the premiership cup.

Fremantle was pressing, the Hawks holding them at bay, searching desperately for someone to deliver a crushing blow.

And at the five-minute mark of the final quarter, Isaac Smith stepped up.

The dashing wingman had made a meal of a close-range set shot at the Punt Road end earlier in the match, saying the ball had blown out of his hand as he kicked.

But when he marked on the 50m line at the city end, there was no doubt in his mind.

He was going to kick it.

With a little encouragement from Shaun Burgoyne, the 24-year-old went back off his mark, took aim, and sent a crisply timed 55-metre drop punt straight through the middle.

In a low-scoring match, the Hawks were 17 points up, and victory was within reach.

"I'm always confident," Smith said after the match.

"I've kicked more goals from outside 50 than inside 50.

"I knew I could get the distance, but you've just got to have the balls to go back and do it. 

"I went back and kicked it, and carried on like a lunatic."

Smith's high-leaping, fist pumping celebration was an explosion of excitement and relief.

After the disappointment of last year's Grand Final loss to the Sydney Swans, he had put his team on the brink of redemption.

"I didn't feel like that was the moment we won, but it put us three goals clear, and I just thought, 'It's been hard to kick goals all day'," he said. 

"We didn't have the win in the bag, but it was going to be hard to come back from there.

"After last year and losing that, which was such a disappointing moment, to then do that, I can't explain it."

The premiership medal is Smith's third in five years – all won at different levels.

Picked up by the Hawks as a mature-age recruit ahead of the 2011 season, he had played in a Ballarat Football League premiership with Redan in 2009, and a VFL premiership for North Ballarat in 2010.

"They're all the same, to tell you the truth," Smith said when asked to compare the three. 

"When you've got a great bunch of blokes, it doesn't matter. 

"It could be country footy, VFL or AFL – when you win them, you win them."

Before a slight clarification.

 "An AFL one might just be a little bit sweeter," he said.