Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson says Buddy Franklin was rushed back last year Buddy kicked eight goals on return tonight. ALASTAIR Clarkson admits the Hawks made a mistake rushing Lane Franklin back from injury too soon at a critical stage last season. The superstar forward returned from two games out with a knee injury last night, booting eight goals to help smash Essendon by 56 points. Franklin was almost ready to play last weekend against the Bulldogs but the Hawks rested him for an extra game as precaution. Clarkson said the club wanted to avoid falling into the same trap as last year when he re-injured a sore hamstring in Round 15, resulting in six-week lay-off on the eve of finals. The coach was delighted with the spread of goalkickers last night and said being cautious with the out-of-contract spearhead paid off against the Bombers. "He was jumping out of his skin, his preparation was first class," Clarkson said. He was close to playing last week but he wasn't quite right on Thursday and Friday and we probably made the mistake last year of playing him (early) and he ended up missing five or six weeks about this time of year last year. When he is fresh and fit he is a really important player to us obviously. We just wanted to make sure he was right and he prepared really well and it was a good result for him tonight."" While Jarryd Roughead also fired with four goals, Paul Puopolo set the defensive tone laying 10 tackles to help stop Essendon's damaging rebound from half back. Clarkson said he wasn't interested in his team peaking until September and was happy with the bounce back in form after a scratchy performance against the Dogs last week. Geelong remains the only team to have beaten the Hawks this year. "We were really pleased with the way we played tonight," Clarkson said. We were a little bit scratchy with our form last week against the Dogs and we had a pretty heavy month, we travelled three times out of the last four. And we weren't playing our greatest footy last week but it was really pleasing to get in good conditions, with a closed roof on the stadium and play some good footy. Essendon play this ground really well and to be able to stop the flow of the way they like to play their footy was important, particularly early. They got away to a bit of a start and looked like they were getting the game on their terms but for us to correct that and get ourselves in front by half time was a really great effort by our players.