SAM MITCHELL admitted his Hawks "shot (themselves) in the foot" after giving up a 28-point lead to Greater Western Sydney on Sunday afternoon.

Mitchell was full of praise for the way the Giants went about their footy, acknowledging that the home side's scoring power was simply too much in the end.

"We just couldn't stop their scoring late in the game," Mitchell said.

"They're a really well drilled, well coached, really organised side. We know that if they can get (a) run and carry, handball game going, you know, they're number one for handball metres gained by a big margin.

"We were able to restrict that for the majority of the game, but in the last quarter they doubled down on it, which we suspected they would, and it was just a bit too much for us."

Mitchell singled out Toby Greene, Jesse Hogan, and Brent Daniels as key performers in the Giants' come-from-behind victory.

"They had a couple of pretty special bits of play and pretty special players doing a couple of things that obviously got them there," Mitchell said.

"They're a dangerous side… if there were lessons to learn from that other than you have to be good all the time against the best sides, some of it was around the key players for them having key moments."

GWS coach Adam Kingsley also noted the impact of both Daniels and Hogan.

"Brent Daniels went into the midfield and really impacted heavily," Kingsley said.

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"(Hogan's) a critical piece to our structure, we rely on him heavily, sometimes we rely on him too much and I'd like our other guys to pull their weight, but it's difficult when you're putting Jesse as a key forward and then you're playing a 25-gamer next to him, 19, 20-year-old, and you've got a 20-year-old playing his third game.

"We had Max (Gruzewski) and Aaron (Cadman) ahead of the ball trying to contribute, and I thought they competed, for the most part, quite well, but they're not really a threat yet."

But overall, Kingsley noted that the game was ultimately won when his Giants were able to get the game back on their terms.

"For the most part, partly because of us, partly because of Hawthorn's defence, we were a little slow," Kingsley said.

"It felt like we were a little boring with the ball to be fair, and so we were able to generate a bit of run from behind with speed on the ball and looked a bit more exciting."

But he was also sure to give credit to the Hawks where it was due.

"Hawthorn are a really, really good team, let's not push that aside. They were the better team today, I thought," Kingsley said.

Consistency in performance – across not just a game but the season as a whole – is Mitchell's biggest concern this year, noting that three quarters of anything won't ever be enough.

"We need to be able to play and help the players play at the highest possible level they can for four quarters, every single week. Because three quarters, as we learned today, is not enough," Mitchell said.

"Three quarters of a season is what we're relying on being enough for us because the first quarter was obviously not what we would hope for. So, right now I hope the season is still in our hands."

The Hawks must now prepare to face a smarting Carlton side in a must-win game should they remain a chance for September action.

Meanwhile, the Giants are expecting to regain one, if not two, of their absent midfield stars for next week's clash with Brisbane.

"We expect to get Josh Kelly back next week, he's got to get through training but I think that's all but certain and hopefully, fingers crossed with Coniglio," Kingsley said.