Buddy will kick a bag next week: Hodge

COLLINGWOOD beware – Lance 'Buddy' Franklin's inaccurate return of 1.7 on Sunday will just make him more dangerous this weekend, according to midfielder Luke Hodge.

Hodge, 23, believes 'Buddy' will rebound from his disastrous day out against Richmond in the best fashion possible, with the Magpies set to cop the full brunt of his usually-potent left boot this Saturday at the MCG.

"If anything, it's going to fire him up to kick goals next week," Hodge said, after the Hawks' 12-point win over the Tigers.

"The best part about 'Buddy' is that a couple of years ago, it might have affected him a little bit.

"But, he's pretty mellow at the moment and he's going alright. He's just going to continue to play his role next week and kick a couple of goals again."

The Hawks recorded a dismal 22 behinds during Sunday's game, with Franklin the biggest offender alongside Mark Williams (2.3), and Jarryd Roughead (5.3).

Hodge, who kicked 0.2, said there were no easy solutions to the goal-kicking yips that prevented his side from closing out the game earlier.

"The forwards have been reasonably good so far, so hopefully today was just a one-off," he said.

"They'll be out there this week doing goal-kicking, as they do every other week, and hopefully it will pay off for us next week.

"We've still got Timmy Boyle to come back in from injury, and for Franklin to kick 1.7 and 'Roughy' to kick 5.3 and us still win shows we've got the options to kick goals, but we obviously need to concentrate on our aim a little bit."

The Hawks struggled to break away from the Tigers throughout the match, and while their kicking for goal was the biggest reason the margin failed to exceed 12 points, they also made countless uncharacteristic errors.

Having been on the road for three of the opening six rounds, the side could have been forgiven for starting to feel the effects of heavy legs. But, Hodge denied the players are fatigued and believes they've overcome the hardest section of their draw.

"I hope we're not tired, it's only round six," he said.

"We've travelled three times but in our last 10 games, we've got a pretty good run in Melbourne. We've got one more game now and then a bye, so we'll just keep playing the way we do.

"We're always confident we've got the run to break teams late, and we were probably just lucky we held on today."

After prevailing in a game he described as "not good-looking", Hodge said the Hawks will now look towards a blockbuster fixture against the Magpies this Saturday.

"It's going to a big crowd and we always match up pretty well against Collingwood," he said.

"They're pretty close games and we always look forward to playing against them, and they'll look forward to facing us.”

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the club.