Hawthorn’s run-away AFL qualifying final win over Sydney has increased coach Alastair Clarkson’s confidence his club is hitting the season’s business end with more energy than last year.
The Hawks were also coming off a minor premiership and convincing qualifying final win this time last season.
But they only just scraped past Adelaide in a preliminary final before being upset by the Swans in the decider.
It prompted a rethink about the way they attacked this season, with the aim to conserve more energy for the games that matter most.
And after turning a low-scoring even game at halftime into a 15.15 (105) to 7.9 (51) win over Sydney on Friday night, it appears to be working.
Clarkson said the club had aimed to spread the goal-kicking load more evenly, be more willing to rest players with minor injuries and give more games to youngsters throughout the season to keep key players relatively fresh.
“There’s a lot of energy in the way that we played tonight,” Clarkson said after Friday night’s victory.
“If we can continue in that type of manner in the prelim final then we give ourselves a great chance to progress through to a grand final.
“But that has probably been the most significant thing that we’ve learnt out of 2012.
“… We were having to fight really hard to finish in the top four last year. That took a lot of energy to do that. We just petered out a little bit at the most important part of the year.
“Hopefully this year we’re just a little bit better energised and ready for the contest.”
The Hawks emerged from the Swans clash with no notable injuries.
They’ll regain Lance Franklin from suspension and Cyril Rioli from an ankle injury for their home preliminary final in a fortnight.
That they managed to emphatically dismiss the Swans without that star pair augurs well for their premiership prospects.
“It’s not great when you look at your whiteboard and Franklin and Rioli aren’t on it,” Clarkson said.
“They’re special players and really important players to the way we go about it.
“But we were confident that the way we connect with one another, it didn’t matter who the target was.
“As long as we kept presenting and running the patterns that we like to run in our front half, that guys were going to get opportunities.”