Winning a phenomenal three premierships in a row—and four under the tenure of coach Alastair Clarkson—has cemented this Hawthorn team as one of the all-time greats. At the end of the 2004 season Hawthorn was an unholy mess, with no coach, no chief executive, and no captain. Enter Clarkson, who established a club culture based on endurance, courage, mateship, and sacrifice, and who in 2008, won the first of his four premierships. It was an unlikely win, since Geelong was clearly the best team of the year. All premierships are different. If the 2013 flag was about redemption following the 2012 loss to the Sydney Swans, 2014 was about resilience in the face of injury and Lance Franklin¹s absence. 2015 was about determination: after the preliminary final defeat at the hands of West Coast, Hawthorn simply refused to lose again, and laid waste to the same team at the MCG. Under Clarkson, there is always a way to win. From Jeff Kennett’s reign to the defection of Franklin; from Sam Mitchell standing down as captain to make way for Luke Hodge to the key roles of Jarryd Roughead and Cyril Rioli, this is the story of the team that Alastair Clarkson built, in a decade of success.
