Hawthorn prevails in dull affair against GWS Giants in Launceston GWS Giants young gun Taylor Adams tackles Hawk Jarryd Roughead. GIVEN the succession of fellow finalists that Hawthorn has confronted in the past weeks, it wasn't surprising that it struggled to shrug off the GWS Giants in Launceston. That wasn't an explanation in so many words from Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson, but he intimated a downer wasn't unexpected, particularly against ultra-defensive opposition tactics. We've been up and playing some pretty good footy for a fair while now. We had a really good spread of goalkickers once again, and that has been a key platform for us," he said. That's what we tried to work on over summer, not to be so one-dimensional in our front half and share it among a group of players. The committed Giants and specific tags, such as Rhys Palmer on Hawks half-back playmaker Grant Birchall, made it tough for the odds-on favourites to break free until they booted the last six goals of the contest. Hawks demolish plucky Giants The Giants decided to play a fair few numbers behind the ball and run two or three tags. So it was pretty much a lockdown, dull affair," Clarkson said. I thought we overused the footy. I think we had more handballs than kicks in the first half and that's not usually our go. And we didn't go into our forward line deep enough on occasions. A lot of that was because (Adam) Tomlinson was dropping behind the ball on a regular basis. You look up to go long and there's a saturation of Giants numbers back there, so it meant we weren't fluent and connected to our front half as well as we would've liked. But you can't be too fussy with a win by 80 points. Clarkson said the scoreboard flattered Hawthorn. I thought the Giants were pretty competitive. They out-tackled us by a long way and we couldn't get control of the clearances as much as we would like," he said. They've got some good kids and they're certainly on the right track. Midfield maestro Mitchell stars On the shutdown role that robbed the 10,513 fans of watching their local hero Birchall in full flight, Clarkson said: "We actually don't mind when it happens. It's not great for Birch. He would love to be getting 30 touches every week, but it's very difficult for opposition forward lines to structure up the way they would like when they're running one tag. And if they tag him, they're letting (Sam) Mitchell off the leash. The struggle ensured the Hawks won't take Gold Coast lightly at the MCG next Sunday. And they should get back defender Josh Gibson (ankle) and late withdrawal Brad Hill (thigh). We were just a little bit unbalanced in our back end. Hopefully, we can focus on the things we can control and let the result look after itself," he said.