HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson says his team still needs to improve significantly to challenge for this year's premiership.

Clarkson's Hawks went down to Geelong by 19 points at the MCG on Tuesday in a match some had declared was between Collingwood's two major finals rivals.

But regardless of the closeness and quality of the contest, Clarkson doesn't believe his team is quite up to the mark yet.

"Despite the hype out there about Hawthorn, we know internally that we've got a hell of a lot of work to do," Clarkson said post-match.

"We know that at our best we can challenge a lot of the good sides in the competition, but to do it consistently, we're not quite there yet.

"Whether that's the manner in which we play or whether it's personnel, we need to find that out pretty soon because we want to feature prominently at the end of the year.

"If we're going to do that, we need to win games like today."

Although the scores remained close for most of the afternoon, Clarkson felt Geelong largely controlled the match from late in the first quarter, lamenting his side's inability to match the Cats' vaunted midfield.

"They were better than us when it really came to the crunch," he said.

"Their tough in-and-under players like (Jimmy) Bartel and (Joel) Selwood and those types were just outstanding in the second half, and that meant they were able to get first use of the ball out of the middle of the ground.

"(Brad) Ottens doesn't get any smaller as the game progresses, and he was very influential in the last part of the game as well."

Clarkson was also critical of his team's delivery forward, which meant star Lance Franklin was continually challenged in the air by a wave of Geelong defenders.

As a result, Matthew Scarlett (29 disposals), Corey Enright (25) and Harry Taylor (21) were able to set up damaging counter-attacks for the Cats.

"Especially in the latter half of the first quarter and the start of the second quarter we probably bombed the ball inside 50 a little bit too much, and that just plays into Geelong's hands," Clarkson said.

"They had a lot of easy rebounds out of their defensive end.

"They've got a whole heap of players that rebound very, very well out of their back end and that creates plenty of opportunity for them."