DEFENDER Grant Birchall says the Hawks ‘were probably a little bit lucky’ to come away with a three-point win in Sunday’s nail-biter against Western Bulldogs.

The Hawks kicked the first five goals of the match, before the Dogs hit back to lead by 19 points at the final change.

However, the Hawks responded – with James Sicily’s match-winning goal enabling the team to post back-to-back wins for the first time in 2016. 

“We’ll take the four points. We were probably a little bit lucky, I thought they controlled the game for the majority, but the boys really hung in there,” Birchall said.

After a third term dominated from the Bulldogs, Birchall said the Hawks needed to take a few risks to overcome the deficit, something which paid dividends.

“We just had to take a few risks, but real calculated risks to get the game played in our half,” Birchall said.

“They dominated us in the middle of the ground and in the contested side of the game, so we needed to get that right in the last quarter and move the ball with a bit of hands and a bit of shape and get it into our forwards.”

“We were able to compose the footy and play the way we wanted to play in that last quarter - we got the ball back on our terms.”

Quick ball movement off half back helped the Hawks’ forward find space.

Birchall was again among the Hawks’ best, finishing with 23 disposals and seven marks.

The four-time premiership Hawk believes the team still has plenty of areas to improve, as young players such as Sicily integrate into the team.

“We’ve still got a bit of improvement left in us,” Birchall said.

“We’ll look at a few things we’ll need to improve on during the week, so we’ll do that and go from there.

“It was good for him (Sicily) to bob up.

“We just want him to play with a free spirit, go for his marks and back himself in.

“It was pleasing to see, and hopefully those younger boys can get some belief and perform consistently.”