THERE is a sense of urgency at Hawthorn, with coach Alastair Clarkson admitting his side needs to lift on Saturday night against the Western Bulldogs or risk missing the final eight.

The Hawks are sitting just outside the eight, and with games against Geelong and St Kilda still to come, time appears to be slipping away for the reigning Premier.

"Current form would suggest we need to get a wriggle on or risk not being there when it matters most at the finals time of the year," Clarkson said at Waverley Park on Friday morning.

"We need to perform really well; hopefully playing a quality side like the Dogs will bring out the best in us but we'll wait and see on Saturday night how we hit the park."

Clarkson was reluctant to use injuries as an excuse for his side's poor performance in season 2009 but the absence of several premiership players throughout the year has hindered the team's preparation.

"We're just not playing well enough when we've had our opportunities. We still put 22 players on the park every week and we expect we should be playing better than we are. But it's compounded a little bit by the fact that we haven't been able to prepare with a  group of players," he said.

"Some guys have been able to play from week to week but they've been able to do very little training during the week, they just get themselves up for the game.

"If you can't prepare as well as you like with your pre-season and training mid-week, then it makes it really difficult to get consistency of performance. We've shown that quite clearly this year we've been pretty inconsistent with our output.

"But we're starting to get more numbers on to the track and training has been more productive over the course of the last month. It hasn't transferred into games as yet but I anticipate that it will some point in time in the next seven or eight weeks."

Hawthorn's defence will receive a much needed boost on Saturday night with premiership player Stephen Gilham coming back into the side, following defender Rick Ladson's return last week.

Ladson and Gilham have played just two games between them this season and have been notable absentees from the Hawks' side.

"They're very important players for our structure and if we get those guys into the side and playing well, we give ourselves a great chance of featuring in September. But as each game goes by it becomes a little more urgent," Clarkson said.

The side looks to be furthered strengthened with the return of Cyril Rioli either next week or the week after, while full-back Trent Croad is making headway with his recovery after getting through his first full week of training.

"He's been doing ball work for four weeks only on a modified type of program, but he did full training this week. We're hoping he can step that up over the next three to four weeks and be available to play hopefully by the end of July," Clarkson said.