HAWTHORN’S Simon Taylor says the midfield’s poor distribution of ball into the forward line cost his side a chance of overturning the Bulldogs’ 30-point lead in the final quarter.

The Hawks enjoyed the majority of possession in the final term but couldn’t convert it on the scoreboard, eventually going down by 17 points.

“Each area of the ground could have done things better. I think a lot of it came down to the midfield. We just didn’t put the ball in the right spots,” Taylor said.

“They (the forwards) do the best with where they get the footy. So if we had just used the ball better I think there would have been a better outcome… it was quite frustrating.”

Taylor says his side wasn’t panicking going into the final quarter despite the big deficit.

“We’ve always started a bit slowly and came home in a flurry, so we knew that if we just kept applying pressure we could bring it home and we sort of knew they had ran out of legs as well,” he said.

“If we just kept applying pressure, we were always going to get shots on goal towards the end of the game. But, obviously we didn’t convert as well as we would have liked.”

The 24-year-old praised the performance of his teammate Lance Franklin, who kicked six goals for the Hawks.

“He was really good for us today. He’s got the potential to do that for us week-in, week-out. I think he missed a bit of a sitter so he probably could have even kicked seven,” Taylor said.

The ruckman says the Hawks will need to be more assertive and increase their defensive pressure if they are to be successful against the Bombers next weekend.

“We need to be playing footy more on our terms, but we couldn’t seem to do that today. They really dictated the state of play. It was a bit like table tennis, up one side, down the other,” he said.

“We wanted to make it less free-flowing and put more defensive pressure on them and use the ball better ourselves. We didn’t play our best game and get beaten so that’s a positive. We’ve definitely got areas we can work on.”