Coach Alastair Clarkson ignores hype about "unbeatable" Hawks

HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson has brushed aside suggestions his team is unbeatable when it plays its best football.

HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson has brushed aside suggestions his team is unbeatable when it plays its best football.

Adelaide coach Brenton Sanderson said in the build-up to tomorrow's preliminary final at the MCG that the Hawks would have to play below their best if his side were to have any chance of advancing to next week's premiership decider.

But a typically frank Clarkson dismissed that notion before the Hawks' final training session at Waverley this morning.

''We've been really pleased with our preparation and that's all we can control,'' Clarkson said.

''We're not really in to responding to comments and that sort of stuff, it's just about what processes we've put in place over the course of the season to date.

Everyone starts equal on preliminary final day.

''What we do know is the last two games of the home-and-away season - Sydney and West Coast - and the qualifying final versus Collingwood are a great preparation for finals footy and particularly prelim finals.

''We know that Adelaide have been a good side all year and despite odds and favoritism and all that sort of stuff we know that the scoreboard is going to say 0-0 at the start and whatever games have been won before ... everyone starts equal on preliminary final day.

"There'll be four teams battling it out trying to get their the following week.

"We're really happy with our preparation and that's all we can control.''

The Hawks trained for all of 20 minutes, barely getting out of neutral let alone first gear, before signing autographs for hundreds of adoring fans.

Jordan Lewis and Clinton Young looked perfectly fine, shaking off any lingering doubt that they may not play because of the soft-tissue injuries that ruled them out of the win over the Magpies a fortnight ago.