WHEN Alastair Clarkson was announced as the surprise choice as Hawthorn's new coach in late 2004, the club was in a rut.

On field, the team had won just four games that season, and its immediate prospects looked bleak.

It hadn't made the finals since 2001, and the most recent premiership – 1991 – was fast fading in supporters' memories.

Off field the picture was just as bad. The Hawks had no CEO, poor facilities, and were facing potential upheaval at board level.

Eight-and-a-half seasons later, and Clarkson has established himself as one of the leading modern-day coaches, at a club that is now a powerhouse of the AFL.

On Friday night against West Coast, he will join legends John Kennedy Snr and Allan Jeans as the only men to have coached Hawthorn in 200 games.

He has delivered five finals appearances, including the drought-breaking 2008 premiership, with every chance of more to come.

And perhaps just as importantly, as long-serving midfielder Brad Sewell says, Clarkson has played a key hand in shaping the stability and strong culture for which the Hawks now stand.

"He guided the club through a pretty dark time initially, not only on the field, but off the field as well," Sewell told the AFL Record this week.

"He has created and maintained a genuine Hawthorn culture.

"Hopefully it will lead to sustained success; multiple finals appearances and multiple premierships."

That was exactly Clarkson's long-term plan when he made his pitch to acting Hawthorn CEO Jason Dunstall in late 2004.

The former North Melbourne and Melbourne midfielder, who had developed himself as a coach in stints at Port Adelaide, St Kilda, Werribee and Central District, argued the club needed to look to youth.

He convinced Dunstall, and eventually the Hawks' board, that he could carry the club to a premiership in six to eight seasons.

History will show it took only four, a credit to how totally the entire club bought into Clarkson's vision.

But well before the glory days of 2008, there were tough calls to be made, and tough love to be meted out, as Clarkson set about re-building a playing group bereft of confidence.

Within weeks of his arrival, popular club servants Adrian Cox, Lance Picioane, Mark Graham and Kris Barlow were all told they were not part of the Hawks' future.

Luke McCabe retired and Nathan Thompson was traded to North Melbourne.

Shane Crawford, who had already decided to relinquish the captaincy, weighed up a change of scenery.

He'd had what he described in the book One For All as a "hate-hate" relationship with Clarkson on the playing field, and would be in his mid-30s by the time the new coach's six-year plan bore fruit.

In one of the great decisions in football history, given hindsight, Crawford decided to stay and was soon joined, following the 2004 NAB AFL Draft, by three young players who would go on to become premiership stars: Jarryd Roughead, Lance Franklin and Jordan Lewis.

On the training track, Clarkson immediately asserted his authority, as Sewell remembers.

"We were a young group and we'd come off the back of very little success in the previous couple of years," Sewell said.

"He (Clarkson) was very, very hard, and very disciplined.

"And he was anal in a sense of having us understand the gameplan and the structures, and the discipline-type areas of the club.

"He was a stickler for a lot of the little things early on. Being on time, being professional."

Clarkson borrowed Jeans' 'team first' mantra and installed the four pillars of Kokoda – courage, mateship, sacrifice and endurance – as the Hawks' guiding principles.

Anyone who stepped outside the boundaries was harshly dealt with.

If Clarkson's penchant for discipline and hard work stood out early, it took the football world a little while to recognise the other great hallmark of his coaching: strategy and tactics.

Even before joining Hawthorn, the young coach had already started making overseas study tours in search of an edge.

He has continued that ever since, as recently as last summer travelling abroad to meet with NBA team the San Antonio Spurs, the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles, and European soccer clubs FC Barcelona and Bolton Wanderers.

Clarkson implemented clear ball movement patterns and structures during his first two seasons, but wins were limited because his team did not have the experience or skill level to carry them out.

The team made a huge leap in 2007, and by 2008, was ready to challenge, with the aid of its new defensive weapon: 'Clarkson's cluster', a revolutionary full-ground zone with origins in soccer and hockey.

"We probably started tinkering with it from midway through 2007, or maybe before that," Sewell said.

"It was something that I don't think anybody had toyed with, let alone implemented in a game.

"We developed and trained it for quite a while; long before publicly, the experts and commentators cottoned on to what we were doing."

A teacher in a previous life, Clarkson's advantage was in not only conceiving and developing such concepts, but in achieving understanding from his players.

"His ability to create a gameplan is fantastic, but then to be able to sell that to the players and get total buy-in would be one of his greatest strengths," Sewell said.

Clarkson's never-ending search for a tactical edge is also a reason his players continue to hear his message, even after nearly nine years.

As small forward Luke Breust explained, the Hawks' gameplan is constantly evolving, never getting stale.

"It seems like every couple of weeks he has come up with a new idea, or he's noticed a trend, and he's able to adapt that into our gameplan," Breust said.

Only once could Clarkson say he fell behind the strategic curve.

Having missed the finals in 2009 and suffered a string of early losses in 2010, the premiership coach realised his team's fall from grace was as much about gameplan as the heavy injury toll that had beset the club since its Grand Final win.

In a 2011 interview, Clarkson said he had come to a "rude awakening" the previous season that the game had evolved past his successful methods of 2007 and 2008.

He and his assistants made "subtle shifts", rotating the interchange more and instructing players in different (less corridor-focussed) ball movement patterns, enough to propel the team into the finals from a 1-6 start.

In more recent seasons, Clarkson has developed Hawthorn into perhaps the AFL's most versatile team, imploring players to establish capabilities in multiple positions.

This year, the think-outside-the-box move of Sam Mitchell to half-back has helped cover for the loss of Matt Suckling to injury, and centre bounces have seen a rotating cast of Hawks, including the big – Jarryd Roughead – and the small – Paul Puopolo.

The over-riding goal is to land on the style that will succeed in finals football.

But if his tactics are ever changing, his demands of his players are not.

"He'll do whatever he can to ensure that we're getting the best out of ourselves," Sewell said.

"If that means giving you a good, hard clip, he's prepared to do that.

"His reputation as an angry man is well deserved, I think, but it's for all the right reasons.

"He has put his neck out frequently in defence of his players, and at the cost of his own image at times."

As the Hawks continue their quest for an 11^th premiership through the remainder of 2013, they'll do so in a stable and strong environment that is set up for long-lasting success.

Vice-captain Lewis said Clarkson, as much as anyone, was the man to thank.

"He has been super important for our club," Lewis said.

"He has melded the group to where it is now.

"I think anyone who is involved in football clubs loves stability, and it's a credit to him and the people around him to have shaped the group to what it is today."

As published in the round 13, 2013 edition of the AFL Record.