ALASTAIR Clarkson says he expects Hawthorn to bounce back from their loss against GWS last week, when the Hawks take on Richmond at the MCG.

After a disappointing 75-point loss to the Giants, Clarkson said he had confidence the playing group would respond after their defeat against the Giants.

“We’ve got a fair amount of confidence in this group – we usually bounce back pretty strongly after a disappointing effort,” he said.

“We were pretty scratchy last week – the six-day break has been good for us, we’re pretty keen to get back into it and for Friday night to come around.”

Clarkson said while losing some key statistical areas was causing some concern, it wasn’t the be-all and end-all to the Hawks winning games of football.

“We don’t look too much into the stats because sometimes they can be a little distorted – I think we’ve won the contested ball stat five times out of the last 22 and we’ve won a premiership in that time,” he said.

“We need to address it, but we don’t place as much importance on it as others.”

Hawthorn has played some very good sides to start the 2016 season, and that was also something the four-time premiership coach was quick to point out.

“We’ve played some bloody good sides in the first part of the year, there would be plenty of teams happy to be 4-2,” he said.

“We’re not absolutely rapt with the way we’re going, but that would probably be discrediting the sides we’ve had to play against.”

“Beating the Bulldogs was a good effort, beating Adelaide was a good effort, the Saints are no slouches and we beat West Coast by a good margin – but we recognise we do need to play some better footy, hopefully it’s coming in the next few weeks.”

Jordan Lewis will take the reins as skipper in the absence of Luke Hodge this week, and Clarkson is backing his vice-captain to improve on a couple of quiet performances over the last two weeks.

“We’re looking for a lift from a number of our players, he hasn’t been in the greatest of touch but he’s been a strong player for us for a long period of time – hopefully he plays well for us tomorrow night,” Clarkson said.

Hawthorn has only won one of the last four games against the Tigers, and tomorrow night presents an opportunity to rectify that.

“We just haven’t played some of our best footy against them on those particular days. But we have another opportunity tomorrow night and hopefully we can do better than what we’ve done the last couple of times,” Clarkson said.

Criticism from media commentators wasn’t worrying the Hawks according to Clarkson, who said there isn’t many differences between their start to 2016 and last year.

“This time last year we were three wins and three losses – the only thing different is our percentage was a bit better than it is at present time,” he said.

“But we’re actually in a better position this year than last year, so we need to play better, we don’t want to put our head in the sand about that, but we still think our best footy is ahead of us this year.”