The Hawks thought they had the game sewn up with three minutes to play in the final term when livewire forward Cyril Rioli put the side 13 points up.
However, the emergency umpire had signalled an interchange infringement against Hawk Grant Birchall, Rioli's goal was cancelled and the Saints were awarded a free kick and a 50m penalty.
What ensued was a mad scramble by both sides to add something to the scoreboard before a Nick Riewoldt behind followed by a stunning Ben McEvoy goal left the scores tied at the final siren.
“If it’s an infringement or not, there’s a blade of grass in it,” Clarkson said after the match.
“To cop such a severe penalty and have the game changed with 50,000 [people] not knowing what’s going on and orange flags being waved... [stepping over the interchange line] has no bearing on the outcome.
“That rule has been introduced to stop blatant 19-men on the field kind of stuff and this is hardly blatant.”
The extraordinary climax came after a four-quarter arm wrestle between the two sides where neither was able to gain any firm ascendancy throughout.
With one point the biggest margin at any of the breaks, Clarkson admitted the final result could be regarded as an appropriate end to a fiercely fought contest.
“I’ve never seen a game of footy like that. As close and as keenly contested from start to finish like that, it was probably a fitting finale in a sense,” he said.
Lost somewhat in the pandemonium of the final minutes was the drastic improvement Hawthorn has shown since arresting a dramatic form slide.
After losing seven of its first eight matches, Hawthorn have now won eight, and drawn one, of their past 10 matches, including impressive performances against premiership fancies Collingwood, Geelong, Western Bulldogs and St Kilda.
“We take enormous confidence out of that. We were in a pretty deep, dark hole earlier in the season and to the players' credit they’ve pulled themselves out of that,” Clarkson said.
“Right at the minute they’ve got enormous belief in themselves and the direction that we’re going.
“We’ve played against some really good football sides in the last three weeks and we’ve been very competitive.
“We really challenged one of the premier sides in the competition and I think we’ve shown the whole footy world that we can compete with these good sides.
“We’ve just got to add up our wins over the next five rounds to see how we’ll feature in September.”
Hawthorn now hits the road where it will fancy its chances against an out-of-form Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium next Saturday.
