An injury-depleted defence that loomed as the weak link in Hawthorn's AFL premiership bid is impressing coach Alastair Clarkson.

The Hawks shored up third spot on the ladder with a 13.13 (91) to 9.8 (62) win over the struggling Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium on Sunday.

Captain Luke Hodge (33 touches, two goals) had probably his best game after an injury-hampered start to the year and former skipper Sam Mitchell was a driving force in the midfield.

Star forwards Lance Franklin and Jarryd Roughead, with five goals and 18 marks between them, were also on song.

But it was the Hawks' unsung defence, which earlier this season lost key players Ben Stratton and Stephen Gilham for the year, that Clarkson was most keen to praise.

Josh Gibson was particularly impressive, taking 10 marks, while keeping Dogs star forward Barry Hall to just two touches and no goals before he was subbed off soon after halftime.

It helped the Hawks establish a 46-point lead by early in the third term against a side they had expected to fiercely challenge them.

"To keep the Western Bulldogs to three goals in the first half on their home track was a super effort by all our players, but particularly our back six were really strong," Clarkson said.

Statistically, the Hawks' defence trails only the top two clubs, Geelong and Collingwood.

"There's plenty that think our back six are reasonably average, but the stats suggest our back end's not going too bad," Clarkson said.

"I think we've had the least amount of marks (conceded) inside 50 in the competition and once again we were able to keep a pretty talented Bulldogs side ... to a pretty miserable score."

The Bulldogs' scoring struggles were also a result of Hawthorn's control of possession, the Hawks having 124 more kicks and 119 more marks than their opponents.

Dogs coach Rodney Eade said his team knew the Hawks retained the ball as well as any side, but in the first half failed to carry out their plan to counter it.

"That's their game, they've got elite kicking skills, they kick it to a single player and lead quickly," Eade said.

"I was disappointed with the first half, it only took one or two players to drop off and not man up.

"We'd spoken about it all week, given them the video and trained it, that's the frustrating thing as a coach, (players not following) instructions which were reasonably basic.

"After halftime we forced them into a bit more error."

But Eade said despite some poor execution, his side's effort was vastly improved from last weekend's 123-point drubbing by West Coast.

The Hawks lost Chance Bateman (ankle) to injury, while the Dogs have queries over Hall (ankle) and Sam Reid (hamstring).

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