CLARKO’S PLEA TO HAWKS: LET’S BE MORE FEROCIOUS AGAINST CATS

ALASTAIR Clarkson has demanded a new level of “ferocity” from his side as he seeks to snap an embarrassing trend of Easter losses to Geelong.

The man who bred a generation of Hawks playing “unsociable football” yesterday made it clear it is time for his team to again make a stand.

Since the “Kennett Curse” was placed upon the Cats, Geelong has won eight of nine Easter encounters and 16 of 21 overall clashes.

Clearly Clarkson wants that aggression to be generated in a fierce attack on the ball rather than man.

But as the holy trinity of Gary Ablett, Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood take the field, Clarkson is more interested in shutting down the Cats’ game plan. He said yesterday the Hawks would have contingencies to put out spot fires should any one of that trio, Mitch Duncan or Tim Kelly light up the MCG.

But Clarkson clearly wants to stop the rot against a side, with just one 2015 Easter Monday win against this team dating back to 2009.

“By and large we haven’t performed well on Easter Monday and we are pretty keen to make amends of a fair few occasions where we haven’t been ready to play at the ferocity required and we hope we are in the frame of mind to do that on Monday,’’ he said.

Ryan Burton will make a speedy recovery from a Round 1 ankle sprain that at one stage seemed destined to put him out of this clash.

Clarkson said he had to train well yesterday to play but the nine-day break had given him enough time to recover after ending the win against Collingwood on the bench.

“We have been quite surprised how well he’s recovered from that ankle strain,” Clarkson said.

Geelong’s senior team could still feature a late change, with Dangerfield, Rhys Stanley and first-gamer Jack Henry into the side for Zac Smith, Harry Taylor and Jordan Murdoch.