Hawthorn took to celebrating the 11th premiership in club history over the remainder of the weekend after Saturday’s 15-point win over Grand Final debutants Fremantle in front of 100,000 at the MCG.
"It’s a real relief,” said defender Josh Gibson of last season's disappointment. “We look back now and obviously last year was a disappointment, but we were able to move on. There’s been high expectations on us this year and probably a premiership was what everyone was expecting. For the boys to knuckle down and not get sucked in to the hype just makes me so happy."
The Hawks made the most of their opportunities as the nervous Dockers squandered a number of chances to steal what would have been a remarkable first premiership.
It will be back to business on Monday for the Hawks as star forward Lance Franklin decides whether his future will remain at Hawthorn or with another club.
A teary Franklin gave an emotional locker room interview after the match saying, “All the football club has been a massive part of me; I love them”, but gave no indication as to whether the Premiership had influenced a decision.
"We will work that out over the next few days," he said. "Tonight is not a time to be considering that. It is a time to be celebrating a wonderful year by our footy club.”
Coach Alastair Clarkson talked about the long wait between premierships.
“We had to work really hard as footy club, we won a flag in 2008 which probably the whole footy world and our footy club thought was probably quicker than we thought we were going to win,” he said.
“We were obviously delighted to win it ,(but) it has taken a lot of hard work to win this second one. We have changed a lot of things at our footy club and it is really a reward for our club, our board, or administration, our coaches and our players.
“It is really rewarding to salute again, it shows a really strong footy club.”
Fremantle will surely be still scratching their heads at a game that could have just as easily been theirs. Two opening quarter blunders by Nat Fyfe from set shots accurately summed up Fremantle's first chance at premiership glory.
“I think the start will haunt us for a while and the missed opportunities will hurt us. But it's a great lesson for our club on the basics under pressure – that is dropped marks, missed targets, missed tackles, missed shots. At the end of the day, they separate quality,” he said.
“Missed opportunities. From turnovers they kicked five straight and we kicked 2.9. In a tight, tough contest in the conditions that were out there today, we all know, we've seen it, it occurred again today.
“Would we have won? I'm not sure, but we certainly would've been able to put a little more pressure on them, particularly early. And then not as much effort to come from behind like we did.”
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