Clarkson said both sides had struggled at times to cope with "the different set of circumstances" that locked them into a qualifying final well over a month ago and that the Dogs' two wins in the past seven matches were no indication of future performance.
"We've only really turned our attention to the Western Bulldogs, with our playing group anyway, in the early part of this week. We acknowledge that they've had a tremendous season, and when they're at their best they can beat any team in the competition," Clarkson said from Waverley on Thursday.
"The home-and-away season is run over 22 rounds and both Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs have won enough games to qualify to play in this game, so it's really who applies themselves the best tomorrow night who's going to win the game of footy.
"I read with a bit of interest that Richmond has won a significant amount of games in the second half of the year. Well, it doesn't mean too much really. The home-and-away series is over 22 rounds and you need to win as many as you can to qualify for finals and both Hawthorn and the Western Bulldogs have been fortunate enough this particular year to do that."
And if Clarkson isn't drawing too many conclusions from the Dogs' performances of late, he's certainly not keen to dwell on the round 10 loss to the Bullies at Aurora Stadium.
"It's not a great reference point for us. The Doggies really showed us how to play that day and beat us quite convincingly. I think the margin of five goals was probably a little bit flattering to us in the end," he said.
"They convincingly beat us through the clearances and through the middle of the ground with their ball movement.
"We'd need to improve a fair bit on that day, but the balance and structure of our side is significantly different since that particular game. Some of that's to do with the way that we're playing now and some of that's to do with key personnel being available to us, so we'd be hopeful that we'd put in a much better performance tomorrow night than what we did in Tassie."
Campbell Brown will be given until the last minute to prove his fitness after sustaining an ankle injury against the Blues, while Simon Taylor and Shane Crawford, who missed that match, were more than likely to resume this week, Clarkson said.
On the face of it the seemingly effortless 78-point over Carlton wouldn't appear to have been the best preparation for the intensity of finals footy, but Clarkson disagreed.
"We couldn't go to first or to third after round 22 last week and Carlton couldn't make it into the finals, so in a sense the game was worthless apart from using it as a great rehearsal for what to expect this week," he said.
"It was night footy against a team that moves the ball in a similar sort of fashion to the Western Bulldogs with a quality midfield. We thought it was a great dress rehearsal for us last week and we're very, very hopeful that we get the same result."
