HAWTHORN will face off against Fremantle on Saturday night desperate for a win to maintain its slim advantage over fellow top four contenders Carlton and the West Coast Eagles.

For experienced Hawk Michael Osborne, the trip to Perth will also offer a chance to reflect on a career that started from humble beginnings.

Osborne, who turns 29 on Friday, will run out in his 150th game for the brown and gold, an achievement that seemed a long way off when he was delisted by the Hawks at the end of the 2002 season after two years on the rookie list.

Offered the pre-season to prove himself, the Queenslander was re-rookie listed for the following season and has since forged an impressive career, highlighted by a 26-touch performance in Hawthorn's victorious 2008 Grand Final.

"It's been a hard road," Osborne said from Hawthorn's Waverley Park home base on Monday afternoon.

"It means a lot getting the opportunity to play at this club, and them sticking with me for all this time.

"I'm proud to be here and I'll have a good crack this weekend."

One thing Osborne will hope for is better luck than he had in his last milestone match.

The small forward tore a hamstring early in his 100th game, which came in the opening round of the 2009 season in a loss to Geelong.

Osborne said the Grand Final win and that wretched start to the following season now seemed a long time ago.

"It's only three years, but a lot's happened since then," he said.

"We missed the finals the following year, so to get back this year and be top four at the moment is a really good indication of how well we're going.

"We've got a great mix of young and old at the moment.

"Being able to play good footy while missing a few of our top players shows that we've still got improvement coming up and there's still some exciting times ahead."

The Hawks enter their away clash with Fremantle just half a game clear of the fourth-placed Blues and a game ahead of fifth-placed West Coast.

Alastair Clarkson's men have been solid against lower-ranked teams in 2011 - their only failure outside losses to ladder leaders Collingwood and Geelong was in round one to Adelaide - and Osborne expected that consistent form to continue against Fremantle.

"Without pumping it up too much, we'll be looking to go over there and do the same as we did this week, which was to have everyone contributing for four quarters," Osborne said.

"Looking across the whole competition, you want to win the majority of those games, and then the real test is against the top four sides.

"We've got a few games coming up that will test us, and we're hoping to win those ones as well."

Hawthorn will enter the Fremantle clash off a six-day break after its 54-point win over Melbourne at the MCG yesterday, but Osborne didn't expect the shortened turnaround to present a problem.

"We'll just have a bit of a lighter week (at training)," he said.

"We'll focus on a bit of recovery over the next couple of days to get the bodies right, and we'll head over there a day early and see how we go from there."

Mark Macgugan writes for hawthornfc.com.au and covers Hawks news for afl.com.au. Follow him on Twitter: @mmacgugan.