HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson will not be afraid to pull emerging defender James Sicily into line and punish him accordingly if he continues a bad pattern of behaviour following his latest on-field indiscretion.
Sicily was suspended for one week for serious misconduct after deliberately treading on the back of the leg of North Melbourne's Shaun Atley while he lay on the ground in last week's clash at Etihad Stadium.
The 23-year-old was also suspended for one match after he was found guilty of kneeing Geelong skipper Joel Selwood in round two.
"He knows full well that we've got his back but he also knows that my hand is ready to give him a clip over the ear as well when he has an indiscretion like that," Clarkson said at Melbourne Airport on Friday.
Clarkson said Sicily's career, still in its infancy at 48 games, would suffer if he continues to perform similar needless acts on the field.
WATCH: Sicily's colourful start to his career
"For us it's just silly, stupid, unnecessary – just get it out of your game," Clarkson said.
"Whether that's the AFL suspending him or whether it's our own footy club suspending him he needs to get better at that.
"We think, despite what's happened in the last month, he's got better as a player, as a person and these incidents strangely enough are becoming less frequent. The thing is he's had two in three or four weeks and to the outside footy world it looks like they're happening more rather than less.
"He's going to be a really, really good player for us but if he continues to do this sort of stuff he's going to continue to have little hiccups in his career that holds him back from being the very best he can be."
WATCH: Sicily banned for kneeing Selwood
The Hawks flew out for Tasmania on Friday morning and will welcome back star veteran Shaun Burgoyne from a hamstring injury while tough youngster James Worpel will make his debut against St Kilda in Launceston on Saturday night.
Liam Shiels is expected to only miss one match through back soreness, while midfielder Jonathan O'Rourke was Hawthorn's travelling emergency.
Clarkson also had some strong comments on the discussion that centered around Hawk Ryan Burton who was cleared for his part in a bump that left Roo Shaun Higgins knocked out cold.
The four-time premiership coach, speaking on his 50th birthday, said eliminating the congestion on the field would help decrease similar incidents to the Burton bump in future.
"If in the view of the Commission that we want to stamp out any sort of concussion at all from an accidental clash of heads, then let's discuss it and debate it," Clarkson said.
"I'm quite happy for that rule change to be the case and we will educate our players. Does that mean it's the death of the bump? There's been the death of the drop kick, there's been the death of a lot of things in our game.
"If things need to die along the way because it's for the safety of our players then that's a good thing."
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