HAWTHORN'S post-mortem into its disastrous first-half effort on Sunday will include coach Alastair Clarkson reviewing his own role in preparing his players.
The Hawks were slow starters for the second straight week and trailed North Melbourne by 35 points at quarter-time and 57 at the main break, after giving Melbourne a head start seven days earlier.
They slashed the deficit to 19 points eight minutes into the last quarter before the under-siege Roos finally steadied, but the real damage was done in the "dreadful" opening half.
A TALE OF TWO HALVES: Full match coverage and stats
"All the KPIs that we take; we had two green ones out of 18 in the first half – that ain't going to win you too many games of footy," Clarkson said.
"To the credit of North Melbourne, because their KPI board is probably pretty similar, they've won 15 or 16 of them – I think one of them was equal – and the other 15 North has won.
"No wonder it's seven goals to two at quarter-time … we couldn't win it at ground level and we couldn't win it in the air, either, so we were bleeding a fair bit in the first half.
"To the players' credit, we found a way to get ourselves back into the game and maybe even a sneaky chance of being able to pinch it."
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Hawthorn's supposed advantage in the middle became one of the architects of North's triumph, with ruckman Todd Goldstein winning his duel with Ben McEvoy to start it all.
Sydney's reliance up forward on Lance Franklin is well documented, but questions will now be asked similarly of the Hawks with Tom Mitchell, who Ben Jacobs held to a modest 19 disposals and three clearances.
With Mitchell well held, the Kangaroos won the clearance battle in three of the four quarters – sharing it in the third term – and 37-25 overall in just one of their statistical triumphs.
"Mitch was one of a whole midfield, really," Clarkson said.
"We got beaten in the ruck, we got beaten on the wings – this is early in the game – and, in fact, I don't know where we didn't get beaten in the first quarter.
"That's disappointing, because it's the first quarter of the game, you know the heat's going to be on, and to North's credit, they were ready for it and we weren't.
"Who knows why, because it's not like we didn't focus on how well North's been playing over the course of the first four rounds of the season – they've been playing some really good footy."
WATCH: Alastair Clarkson's full post-match media conference
Clarkson indicated veteran Shaun Burgoyne (hamstring) was a likely inclusion for Saturday night's clash with St Kilda after training well this week.
The coach refused to individualise on poor performances, but young star Ryan Burton's shaky form continued with only nine disposals after being dropped a fortnight ago.
"We could point the finger at any individual player at Hawthorn, but it's a collective for us," Clarkson said.
"We had 22 poor players in the first half and part of that is to do with their individual contribution and part of that was to do with a collective.
"I've got to take some responsibility, and we as a coaching group, on why we didn't have our players in the same sort of desire and hunt for the contest as the Kangaroos side.
"But there will be times in the next few weeks where it just evaporates from the Kangaroos system as well. It's bloody hard to maintain for 22 rounds of the season."
