DESPITE an unusually quiet day for Hawthorn’s backmen against a weakened Fremantle outfit at Aurora Stadium on Saturday, Stephen Gilham had more than just the 116-point win to smile about post-match.

The key defender snuck forward early in the match to register only his third goal in 84 games, kick-starting the Hawks’ day and putting the writing on the wall for the disappointing Dockers.

“I don’t get down there too much so that was good,” he said. “I don’t know what I was doing in that part of the ground but it was good for the boys to play some good team footy and get some reward.

“I don’t get many attempts. Gibbo (fellow defender Josh Gibson) and I have a bit of a running battle. We were both on two before today so I’m in front now.”

The magnitude of the win was a surprise to Gilham, but he praised his teammates and their four-quarter effort.

“You never think about winning by that margin, that’s sort of schoolboy stuff,” he said. “We had the right attitude. We spoke about it before the game, not dropping our guard and to the boys’ credit we played four quarters.”

He also went some way to defending the outclassed Fremantle players and put at least some of the credit for the big win down to the Hawks’ advantage at playing in Tasmania.

“I wouldn’t say they were inept,” he said. “They were very young and inexperienced and we’re playing down in Tassie where we love playing.

"We make it a bit of a cauldron down here and they would have been pretty uncomfortable playing down here against us and that was something we had to establish early in the game and the boys did that.”

The huge win on Saturday was in stark contrast to Hawthorn’s loss to North Melbourne at Launceston earlier in the year and Gilham admitted the Anzac Day defeat had provided a spur for his club.

“That really stung, that loss. We don’t like losing down here,” he said.

With the four points from this win safely in the bag, the Hawks can now look forward to at least the first week of finals action, but there’s still the matter of a clash with ladder-leading Collingwood to come in round 22.

“They smashed us earlier in the year and we’ve had a good record (against Collingwood) going back a number of years but we owe them one next week and we’ll try to really build some momentum going into September," Gilham said.