Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson has blamed tiredness, his team's failure to take its chances and the umpires' failure to give Lance Franklin an even break, as the prime reasons for Saturday's heartbreaking one-point loss to Geelong.

But Clarkson declared himself proud of the Hawks' aggressive, attacking approach to the contest.

Hawthorn led by 28 points at the two-minute mark of the final quarter before surrendering to a behind scored from a set shot after the final siren by Geelong midfielder Jimmy Bartel.

The Hawks will reflect on a host of chances to nail the win that went begging including two misses from Franklin when the Hawks were still 10 points up, a dropped chestmark by Jarryd Roughead when he was well within range and Josh Kennedy's decision to handball to Franklin rather than take a shot for goal when in the clear 30 out directly in front at the 29-minute mark with scores level.

Franklin was run down, the ball was turned over and that was that.

"We just didn't take our chances in the last quarter as well as we could have, we didn't move the ball as quickly as we had in the first three quarters," said Clarkson.

"We're really pleased with the way that we played throughout the course of the day but let it slip in the last 10 minutes of the game."

"If you do that against a quality opponent, sometime you might hang on and sometimes you lose and unfortunately for us today, we lost, but we're pleased with what we were able to show out there today."

"We were back to playing aggressive, attacking footy and we won in nearly every area of the ground except on the scoreboard."

"We were on the bitter end of it today ... we just fell away a little bit with our energy levels in the last part of the game which allowed Geelong to get a little bit of momentum."

Asked whether the Hawks were still in the finals race at 8-9, Clarkson said he was not looking any further forward than next week's assignment against Port Adelaide at AAMI Stadium.

He was more expansive however on the treatment dished out by the Cats to Franklin who finished with five goals but who would presumably have scored many more had the umpires been more consistent.

"He just gets monstered and there's so many tiggy touchwood free kicks that are in the middle of the ground ... and the more obvious ones at one end of the ground just aren't paid," said Clarkson.

"That's very, very frustrating and we need to work through that with the umpiring department and try and rationalise why 'Buddy' has to earn his free kicks in such a tough manner."

"We weren't too pleased with the way he was monstered today."

Clarkson said he would be taking up the matter with the AFL Umpiring Department later in the week.