Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson points to the efforts of his young defensive brigade in explaining his side’s stirring win over Adelaide at Adelaide Oval on Thursday night. 

Speaking on ABC Grandstand on Sunday, Clarkson was keen to highlight the roles of Daniel Howe, Blake Hardwick, James Sicily and Ryan Burton who were respectively tasked against the Adelaide star quartet of Rory Sloane, Eddie Betts, Tom Lynch and Taylor Walker. 

“Whilst they were all significant challenges for those players, we thought they all acquitted themselves very well,” Clarkson said.

“The exciting thing is the next generation are coming through for us, and while there’s going to be some ups and downs, we all saw that they’re on track, those boys.”

The upset win figures as a highlight of the Hawks season so far, in which they have recorded only five wins to Round 14.

The four-time premiership coach believes the level of change at Hawthorn has been the club’s greatest hindrance this season, with the performances of these inexperienced youngsters proof that things are beginning to turn.

“We’ve had so much change at our footy club, both off-field and on-field, this year.

“The pillars at our footy club that we speak about are the president, the CEO, the senior coach, the footy manager and the captain, and we have had four of those five positions change hands over the last 18 months.

“So that is a pretty significant change.”

Clarkson said the club acknowledges that this process of adjustment is part of the natural evolution of football clubs but there is no easy way of navigating through such periods.

“We all accept that this is part of football, but there’s been a fair bit of upheaval in the last 18 months and it’s probably just taken us a little bit of time to work it all out.”