One of Hawthorn’s shining lights in its round four victory against Geelong in Launceston was defender Brent Guerra.

A key player in the Hawks strangulation of the Cats’ attacking game, the former Saint picked up 28 possessions, just one behind teammate Luke Hodge.

The Hawks’ most experienced player in the back-half, Guerra was in fine touch and assisted in restricting flow to the Cats’ big forwards and keeping Nathan Ablett, Tom Hawkins and Cameron Mooney goalless.

"It's probably the best season I've had so far, just starting off. Four games in and I've been happy with all of them," Guerra told hawthornfc.com.au after the match.

"The thing is, I just can't slacken off. I won't be doing that at all.

"It was probably the best pre-season I've had, as in other years I've had injuries. But this year, I've been lucky and I've put in a full pre-season, which has been great."

The forward-turned-defender said his quality of life has improved immensely since crossing from the Saints at the end of 2005.

"I absolutely love it here. When I was at St Kilda, I had to play an opportunist position up forward," he said.

"Here, Clarko has given me the opportunity down back and I'm finding it a lot better. The boys are great and they help me out a lot, and Clarko giving me another chance has just been great.

"I go into every game wanting to do my best and help the team out, and I suppose this year it's going to be different again."

Like many players find, Guerra believes changing clubs - for the second time after starting his career at Port Adelaide - has resulted in his improvement as a player.

"I think I am a better player because of it. I've changed a lot of things about my game, and it's helping me out," he said.

"Putting in a full pre-season has gone a long way towards allowing me to play good footy as well."

Of the come-from-behind win over the Cats, Guerra said it was encouraging to run over the top of them in the final term, as the Hawks haven't always had the confidence to do as such.

"It was a great win. Geelong is always a hard team to beat, and it was the first time they'd played down here, but it was great to get a win under the belt," he said.

"We probably won one or two tight games last year, but to beat Geelong down here by a couple of points was just great.

"There's more confidence in the group, and Geelong are a very good side and to not let them run over us in the last couple of minutes was a good effort by the boys.

"We'll look forward to playing the Bulldogs next week."He praised the performances of two of the club's big defenders, who had jobs on Hawkins and the younger Ablett, and said despite the recent success of the Cats' attacking half, the Hawks went in backing themselves.

"The tall boys in Stephen Gilham and Danny Jacobs played really well," he said.

"Hawkins kicked a few goals last week and he didn't get any today. For the tall boys, they did a great job.

"We've got Campbell Brown, who can play on taller blokes, and we went into the game pretty confident that our backline players could do the job."

The crowd of 17,120 who turned out for the match at Aurora Stadium became increasingly vocal as the Hawks ground their way back into the contest, and Guerra said it was pleasing to see so many adopted supporters in attendance."It was very loud, and when it's pretty tight like that heading towards the end of the game, the crowd lifts a bit more," he said."They were great today in getting behind us, so it was good."