HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson admitted he had pencilled in Carlton for a win when Blues' spearhead Brendan Fevola was lining up for a deciding shot on goal with one minute remaining in Saturday's clash at the MCG.

The Hawks led by five points when Fevola marked inside the Blues' attacking arc and lined up to boot what was expected to be his ninth goal, but instead slammed his shot into the goal post.

"I thought we were shot," Clarkson said after the Hawks won by four points.
 
"He pegs them from 55m out; he kicked two 50m goals in the last quarter, and you expect he's going to nail one from 20m.

"That's just the luck of the draw. We're just pleased we did enough earlier in the game to get ourselves in front, and we move on to next week."

Clarkson said it was pleasing to register consecutive wins for the first time this season and create a base from which to launch some momentum.

"We've just been scratching behind the ledger a little bit since the start of the season," he said.

"We've got it back even with the card at 3-3, and we've come through the game reasonably injury-free, which is the first time since the grand final that we haven't had an injury during the game, or at training during the week.

"That will hopefully mean we can consolidate our position a little bit, but we've got a tough game against the Bombers on Friday night and we've only got six days to prepare."

Clarkson said Jarryd Roughead's eight-goal performance was one of his best, and that his game – which won him the David Parkin Medal for most valuable player – was an example of how versatile the Hawks' attacking structure could be.

"He's such a big figure for us in our forward half, and they were spending a lot of time and putting a lot of planning into [Buddy] Franklin," he said.

"That's the beauty of our forward line at the present time. We've got multiple options down there, and our only hope is that at some point in time that if they hold Franklin and Roughead, that [Cyril] Rioli, [Michael] Osborne, [Mark] Williams or [Campbell] Brown get on the scoreboard.

"I think that's going to come sooner rather than later."

Overall, Clarkson conceded Saturday's narrow win was partly influenced by good fortune.

"We've been searching for a bit of luck over the first part of the season and we finally got it today," he said.

"It's disappointing for Carlton, obviously, because it was a great contest, but we needed the four points so we're pretty pleased we were in front at the final siren.

"We worked hard, we got the points, and we look forward to tackling the Bombers next Friday night."