Clarkson refused to concede that the absence of four of his starting 22 was a reason for the loss, and said being beaten in the clearances 36 to 23 had more influence on the Hawks' first defeat of the season.
"If you had a pen and paper and mapped out Hawthorn's best side, we haven't had that for the whole year and we've been able to win nine games on the trot," he said.
"So personnel weren't the excuse today. We were beaten by a side that was hungrier at the contest than what we were, and that's been an area of our game that's been really good for the first nine matches of the season.
"It wasn't up to that standard today and it needs to be next week against the Essendon footy club otherwise it will be a real tough contest again."
He agreed the Hawks had largely been beaten at their own game, after being outweighed in tackles and second in the pressure and intensity applied.
"We played against a very good football side today and we didn't play as well as what we could have," he said.
"I thought at different stages of the game, we stopped the Doggies from playing the way they wanted to play too, but we just couldn't apply much scoreboard pressure to the Bulldogs because we got trounced at the stoppages.
"We couldn't get the ball into our forward half of the ground regularly enough to be able to kick a score."
Clarkson said it was far from catastrophic that the Hawks have dropped their first match in 10 rounds of football, and said the players will look ahead to their clash with Essendon next Saturday at Telstra Dome.
"We prepared well and we've come up against an opposition that has 18 players in the side that have played every game for the season," he said.
"That stability means an enormous amount going into a game, and they've been up and about, they've lost one game of football for the year and that was by a kick and they should have won that game too.
"It's nearly impossible to win every game of a football season, and we certainly set out to win every week but we understand the reality of how tough this competition is. It's unlikely you're going to be able to string a lot of games together on end.
"We've had nine on the trot and it's been a superb effort by our guys, but we didn't get the points today and we move onto the Bombers next week."
