Having overcome West Coast by 20 points at Etihad Stadium on Friday night, the Hawks have won 11 games in a row for the first time since 1975.
Victory next Sunday will draw them level with the Hawthorn premiership team of 1961.
But the club is squarely focused on only one goal, which won't be achieved without victory on the last Saturday in September.
To do that, defender Ben Stratton says, improvement is still needed.
"I think it (the winning streak) is irrelevant," Stratton told AFL.com.au on Friday night.
"We just want to keep improving; we still haven't played our best footy.
"We've played patches of it, but I don't think we've had a really thorough four-quarter game.
"So we've got to work on our consistency."
Coach Alastair Clarkson agreed.
"As we know, it's all about silverware and preparing yourself for the best opportunity at the end of the year," he said.
Clarkson was pleased to take a hard-fought win for the second game running, without his team playing at its absolute best.
Like Carlton the previous week, the Eagles had the better of Hawthorn at clearances, winning 20-9 out of the centre square.
While paying credit to West Coast and the Blues for their desperation at the stoppages, the 200-game coach said it was an area for his team to work on.
"Our forwards were really, really dangerous all night, and we did look potent once we could get it in there, but they were so damaging around the stoppages," Clarkson said.
"They beat us convincingly at various stages of the game, particularly in the first and third quarters, and they gained the ascendency of the game as a result of that in those two terms.
"When we could square the ledger a little bit, we were right in the contest."
The Hawks got a combined 15 goals from forwards Jarryd Roughead (five), Jack Gunston (five), Luke Breust (three) and Lance Franklin (two).
