HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson said his side had a lot of work ahead of it after watching it succumb to St Kilda at Telstra Dome on Saturday night.

Leading by 28 points at half-time the Hawks were hammered 12 goals to three after the main break as the Saints took control all over the field.

Clarkson doubted anyone at the ground would have predicted the magnitude of the Hawks’ second-half fadeout.

“I’m sure our coaches, the crowd, and, dare I say it, with no disrespect to the Saints, they probably didn’t see it coming at half-time either,” he said.

“As much as they would have had belief in themselves, we were very poor in the second half and full credit to St Kilda.”

The coach said his side was well beaten in contested ball and failed to control the footy as St Kilda began to dominate the midfield, adding that the move of Jason Blake into the ruck helped turn the game.

He rated the side’s third loss of the year as a reality check for all in brown and gold and dismissed the notion the side took its eye off the Saints and placed it on Friday’s opponent Geelong as “rubbish”.

“There has been a lot of talk and heightened expectations of Hawthorn, but it is a bit of a reality check for our club today,” he said.

“We’re still got a lot of work to do to and we know that internally as a coaching group and a playing group.”

Having lost its chance to jump into second place, Hawthorn now faces reigning premier Geelong on Friday night in a match already sold out.

“We have to lick our wounds for a couple of days and get ourselves ready for the Cats because there has been a lot of talk and hype about it,” he said.

“Irrespective of how well we performed tonight we need to bounce back pretty strongly. It’ll be a really good test for us playing the benchmark side of the competition over the last 18 months.

“For our guys to get the exposure in front of upwards of 90,000 people, against the reigning premier, will be a great challenge for us.

“It’ll be a chance to look at our progress because we’ve still got a fair amount of catching up to do on the sides like the Cats and the Bulldogs.”

Despite the loss, Clarkson said his side had performed above expectations to sit in third place with a 13-3 record.

“We’ve won 13 games and I certainly didn’t anticipate that at round 16 we would have won 13,” he said.

“Our form’s been pretty good, but the age of our group and the experience they’ve got, we are miles behind the Geelong and the Western Bulldogs on that front.”