Strong Hawthorn sides have made it past the first round of the pre-season series in all but one of Clarkson's six years at the helm, but the coach signalled a change in philosophy in Hobart on Thursday.
While the Hawks will have up to 40 players available to take part in an intra-club match in Launceston on Friday, the vast majority of Clarkson's veterans will not board the plane to WA.
"The demands of the game are such that you've got to make sure that your players are ready and available to play [in round one of the premiership season]," Clarkson said.
"You think of Adelaide last year, who had a really hard pre-season and got to round one and had 10 or 15 guys on their list who weren't available to play.
"There are pretty strong statistics to say that if you get a fair amount of your players available for round one then you're going to have a pretty good season, so that's a big focus for us.
"We'll have about 40 guys who will be playing tomorrow and then the side that goes to Perth next week is going to be a really young side.
"We've always liked to win in the first round of the NAB Cup where we could and we've done that pretty successfully over the last four or five years, but we're putting a heavy focus on round one of the main season this year."
While his NAB Cup side will be a youthful one, Clarkson is excited by the opportunities on offer to players desperate to push their names into contention for a senior spot early in the season.
Luke Hodge has enjoyed an outstanding preparation, but is one of the many experienced players unlikely to make the trip.
The Hawks enter the final phase of their pre-season campaign in excellent shape according to the skipper and that has him bullish about his club's chances in 2011.
"We've done everything right to date and hopefully that keeps going," Hodge said.
"We'll sit down before the start of the season and go through some targets that we'll set as a group, but we've done as good a pre-season as we've done for a while and we've primed ourselves for a good season.
"The main thing you aim for each pre-season is just to get as many guys out there as you can to do the majority of the work and we've been able to do that.
"It's probably been our best pre-season for three or four years."
