TO COME within a kick of a Grand Final at the expense of a team that had only lost two games for the year is an extraordinary effort by any means.

But Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson was not in any mood to praise his players' endeavor, suggesting an inability to sustain their effort cost them a win over Collingwood on Friday night.

"We let a golden opportunity slip. Whether you finish on the bottom or the top, you are always proud of your players," Clarkson said in his post-match media conference.

"We play a tough, volatile sport. I don't want anything to do with pride or bad luck and all that sort of rubbish that is going to come our way because it was a noble effort.

"We should have won a game of footy and we miss out on a Grand Final because we weren't hard enough and tough enough for long enough."

Clarkson also conceded that poor disposal around the ground cost his team when it counted.

"Collingwood's rebound rate in the last quarter was the highest it was for the game and that was all because we couldn't retain possession of the ball once we got centre-forward," he said.

"We were actually getting it centre-forward OK and had some inside 50 opportunities. We were getting it, we just couldn't connect.

"We couldn't mark the ball, we were averaging 25 or 30 marks a quarter for the first three quarters and then only have 11 marks for the whole last quarter that ultimately cost us the game."

One of the most famous lines in Hawthorn's rich history is "pay the price", an urging from Allan Jeans to his players during the 1989 Grand Final. Clarkson echoed those words but with a different sentiment after the end of their 2011 campaign.

"We pay the price, a bloody hard price to pay when you've got a side on the ropes and you don't deliver the final fatal blow. We had a plan in place and we executed the plan for a fair portion of the night," he said.

"We just couldn't do it for the whole four quarters and we've got to learn the hard way, and that is watch two good sides have a crack at each other next week for the title, knowing full well we could have quite easily participated ourselves."

Clarkson said it was one of the harsh truths of sport that his team, which at one stage looked likely to progress to the Grand Final, would now have to sit and wait anxiously for another chance to get themselves back in that position.

"I don't want our players to have a warm, fuzzy feeling about being noble and all that sort of stuff. We set ourselves to win this game and go to a Grand Final and we failed," he said.

"When it's just sitting right in front of you and you can grab it and feel like you can touch it, it is so hard to cop. Only two sides can be there at the end of September and we're not one of them this year."