"It was a special day with Brent Guerra playing his 150th and Crawf playing his 300th," Clarkson said after the 69-point win over the Brisbane Lions at Aurora Stadium.
"You always like to win milestone games, it's a good result for us with plenty of recognition for Crawf and Goo (Guerra), but more importantly we got the four points which makes us a certainty to finish in the top four which is what we were after obviously.
"Now we can focus on the next three games and get ourselves ready for finals."
The Lions tried to match Clarkson's side at its own game which led to a dour first half in Launceston with plenty of numbers behind the ball on both sides, but the Hawks' coach was pleased with how his players stuck to the task.
"It was a really tight game early and both sides found it difficult to break through and find run through the middle and get inside 50 opportunities", he said.
"It was a real arm wrestle early in the game but as we continued to work hard through the middle of the ground, especially from stoppages … our midfielders gave us enough supply throughout the course of the second half to be able to win.
"It was really tough early and it was a demonstration of the maturity of our group to be able to work through that and eventually get the points."
Luke Hodge played a damaging role as a loose man in defence with Clarkson pleased with the development of the likes Xavier Ellis, Cyril Rioli and Cameron Stokes that has allowed him to utilise the gifted onballer in the 'backline general' role.
Clarkson was typically low-key when it came to evaluating Lance Franklin's six-goal performance, but praised the spearhead's ability to capitalise on the work of the midfield unit and hurt the opposition on the scoreboard.
"We were interested in [the Lions'] comments throughout the week when they openly stated that they weren't going to allow Franklin to have the space that he had against Collingwood," he said.
"So we knew that they were likely to have extra attention on Buddy and it took us a while to work out how we could best work our way through that.
"As the game unfolded and we continued to be able to provide supply; there's not much you can do when the ball goes in there a lot. He's a very, very talented player and when the guys kick it to his advantage he's very hard to stop."
Stephen Gilham and Trent Croad had plenty of help in nullifying Jonathan Brown and Daniel Bradshaw respectively, but they earned high praise from the coach for their efforts in keeping the Lions duo's contribution to three goals combined.
