“WE’RE just not quite there yet.”

That was how Hawthorn coach AlastairClarkson summed up his side's 33-point semi-final loss to the Kangaroos onSaturday night.

With the defeat coming on the back of an inspirationalcome-from-behind triumph over Adelaidelast weekend, the disappointment was clear on the coach's face as he frontedthe media shortly after the final siren.

“It tells us a little bit about where we'reat as a footy club,” Clarkson said.

“When the spotlight was at its hottest, weweren't able to perform in a big game for our footy club.

“We're disappointed with our effort. Thestark realisation is that we're not quite a top-four side as yet, and theKangaroos are a very proud football club, and they showed us the right way ofplaying finals footy tonight.”

Clarkson said the club will now doeverything it can to ensure it doesn't slip away next season, and avoid thetype of year the Western Bulldogs endured on the back of their 2006 finalscampaign.

He also said he hopes his players will hurtfrom their sudden and somewhat brutal exit from the finals race, as they lookahead to a long off-season of summer training.

“We're uncomfortable with the fact wedidn't perform as well as we could have,” Clarkson said, when asked if he waspleased with what his young side did achieve this year.

“We're not comfortable at all with beinghappy to just to play finals footy. We've set about every year since I've beenhere to play finals, and two of the years we've missed the mark and this is thefirst year we've been able to get there.

“We just need to understand just howdifficult it is to get into a position to play in these types of games.

“Our guys will benefit enormously from it,but I hope the disappointment of tonight will fuel a pretty hungry desire tohave a strong pre-season and a strong home-and-away series next year so we cangive ourselves a chance to play in these types of games again.”

Clarkson said the Hawks failed tocapitalise on opportunities and could not find a path to goal owing to a “congested”attacking half, which was indicated by the fact the Hawks had more inside 50s(52 to 49) than the Kangaroos.

He also put down the alarming number ofunforced errors to the pressure associated with September football, but didn'tmake excuses for his side and simply said it was not at its best.

“It's finals footy; there's always a lot ofmistakes,” he said.

“We didn't bring our A-grade game to theMCG tonight, which was disappointing for us because throughout the course ofthe year, we've played a lot better than what we put out there tonight.

“Full credit to the Kangaroos. They bouncedback strongly [from the loss to Geelong],we knew they would.

“We were right in the contest, but we justcouldn't take those crucial chances that we needed to, and just a couple oflucky breaks here and there, whether it was the bounce of the ball or taking aclean ball or an umpiring decision here or there – we just needed a couple oflucky breaks.

“We didn't seem to get them tonight, andthe Kangaroos did take advantage of theirs, and that's why they saluted and getthe honour of playing in a preliminary final next week against Port Adelaide.

“We've just got to dwell on what could havebeen, get back to the drawing board and start all over again.”