WINNING a game by more than 10 goals is usually enough to put a smile on an AFL coach's face, but Hawthorn's 63-point demolition of Richmond left Alastair Clarkson demanding more from his players.

The Hawks' coach proved a hard man to please after his team disposed of a youthful Tigers outfit in the wet at the MCG on Saturday night.

However, his demeanour was probably a fair indication of where he considers the real challenge lies as he tries to manoeuvre his squad into a position to make a run at the 2011 flag.

"We need to get better and we've got a fair bit of ground to make up on some of the better sides in the competition, particularly that black-and-white crew who continue to play good footy," Clarkson said.

"Whilst we're pleased with the win, it nearly sounds arrogant to not be satisfied with a 10-goal victory because if we'd been offered that at the start at the game we would have taken it, but we still think we've got a lot of improvement with the way that we need to play."

While the Hawks' performance, led by Lance Franklin and Luke Hodge, was enough to comfortably account for the emerging Tigers, Clarkson knows the same effort against Collingwood will not suffice.

"When you win by 10 goals, you've usually got a reasonable dominance of the ball, and whilst we finished or were more polished with our goalkicking than the Tigers were we were disappointed that we allowed them so many inside 50 entries and so many chances," he said.

"Inside 50's were even, clearances were even, contested footy was even, but we just managed to get that really good break at the start and that was probably the difference in the end."

Clarkson is well aware of the size of the gulf he must bridge in the grand scheme of things, but there was plenty to like about the Hawks' game against Richmond nonetheless.

His players showed a hunger for the contest from the outset, were first to the ball early when the game was on the line and worked tirelessly throughout in tough conditions.

Ben Stratton's loss certainly put a dampener on proceedings with the important defender dislocating his right kneecap in the third quarter.

"It was pretty graphic, but what ligament or tendon damage that's been done to his knee, we're uncertain of that at this stage," Clarkson said of the third-quarter incident.

"We'll get it assessed over the next two days. I'd anticipate that he's going to miss some time. We're hoping that it's not going to be 12 months, but we're just in the hands of the doctors and they'll let us know what sort of timeframe he's going to miss."

Sam Mitchell was a late withdrawal from the side after he was granted leave to attend to a family sickness, but Clarkson said the former skipper had also struggled to recover from the Melbourne game last week.   

"He probably could have nearly played irrespective of what was going on family-wise, but it was a six-day break," he said.

"He pulled up sore throughout the course of the week and he couldn't train and prepare as well as he usually does. We just thought it wasn't a week to take an enormous risk with him.

"We'll see how things go over the course of this week, see how it all settles and hopefully we can get things back into a little bit of a routine for him and everything will be ok leading into next week's game."