With the grand final contest well and truly done, and the stage-struck West Coast Eagles relegated to a bit part in the Hawks' history, a significant proportion of the 98,633-strong audience chose to collectively vote for the winner of the Norm Smith Medal. Not long after, they had their way.

The 26-year-old champion, the nephew of two previous winners – Maurice Rioli (1982) and Michael Long (1993) – had returned to his favourite football place following a cameo performance in the Hawks' 2014 flag.

From the moment he kicked Hawthorn's first goal, in a passage that  opened courtesy of a Jack Darling 50-metre penalty, the script for the beloved Rioli seemed written. Accepting his accolade from another Northern Territory-born champion, Andrew McLeod, he dedicated the medal to his cousin, who died earlier this year.

The Hawks' 46-point victory over West Coast defied their birth certificates, the record-breaking 31-degree heat and the AFL's dogged attempts to equalise the competition. The oldest premiership team in VFL-AFL history, it has in successive years sent Fremantle, Sydney and now West Coast home from Melbourne  on football's most dismal flight.

When the siren  sounded, Alastair Clarkson, with tears in his eyes, leant forward and caught his assistant Brett Ratten in a bear hug. Both coaches were then swamped by the rest. Standing on the dais before accepting the cup, Clarkson spoke of the club overcoming the adversity of Ratten's personal tragedy, when his 16-year-old son, Cooper, was killed in a car accident.

Thirtysomethings Luke Hodge, Sam Mitchell and Shaun Burgoyne – the latter joining Gordon Coventry with his 31st final, only Michael Tuck having played more – were devastating in a match that saw the Eagles' window open briefly early in the third quarter, only to have it slammed shut by a combination of nervous errors and two of Jack Gunston's four goals.

While normally reliable West Coast stalwarts continually stalled across their forward line, the goal from three-peat captain Hodge came from an almost casual but devastating kick deep in the forward pocket to start the second quarter.

By the final quarter there were humiliating Bronx cheers for the Coleman medallist Josh Kennedy, who was held scoreless by the Hawks' only grand final debutant, James Frawley.

By contrast, Gunston returned from an ankle injury to kick four – taking his three-premiership victory tally to nine goals. He had Rioli, with  11 score assists, to directly thank for two of them. So enamoured was the stadium with Cyril – his effortless journeys into empty spaces and his brutal tackles – that when his third shot for goal fell tantalisingly short in the final term (only to be marked by Jarryd Roughead) the anti-climax was audible.

"There's no better place than to be here on grand final day," declared Hodge on his fourth premiership stage. "Thank you football. It's an up-and-down sport and you guys ride the rollercoaster with us. To my boys, I couldn't be prouder."

It has been suggested that this group has been driven not by equalling the most recent premiership hat-trick, achieved by Brisbane, but by an opportunity to stand alongside the most recent Hawthorn dynasty, which contested seven grand finals for four flags.

According to Jason Dunstall, a champion from that era  who selected and stood by Clarkson, this group had already done that. Now, Dunstall says, Hodge, Mitchell, Roughead and Jordan Lewis and co have moved past their predecessors.

Hawthorn's 13th premiership takes the club past Melbourne, to two short of Collingwood, and three short of Carlton and Essendon. That it has contested four straight grand finals has frustrated the AFL's socialist system and, according to some Hawks bosses, rattled  AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick.

Still, the head commissioner looked as impressed as anyone lucky enough to be standing on the MCG after the siren. Except, of course, the humiliated Eagles.

It was illustrative of the vintage of Hawthorn's ageing premiership team that the prolonged victory lap around the MCG seemed punctuated with as many of their young children as players.

Clarkson now joins modern-day coaching legends Allan Jeans, Tom Hafey, David Parkin, Kevin Sheedy and Leigh Matthews with four premierships. He becomes the first coach to reach that mark in an 18-team competition and the point will be raised for decades as to whether the unlikely superstar mentor was flattered by the greatest modern-day team.

But that would be to downgrade what the once little-known and barely rated Clarkson has achieved since he came to the old Glenferrie Oval at the end of 2004 on a two-year deal, and asked for patience as he first dismantled and then oversaw the rebuilding of the Hawthorn list.

The game briefly came alive after half-time as West Coast's window opened with Darling's first goal – the first of the third quarter, putting his team within 24 points. But Luke Shuey ran towards goal and – with four Eagles to choose from – bungled, instead handballing to the lone Hawk Taylor Duryea.

And then Darling, who had a grand final day shocker, fumbled a textbook mark in front of goal. Both were schoolboy errors. Minutes later, Ryan Schoenmakers – last year's heartbreak kid after missing selection in the premiership team – goaled, and the window closed.

Gunston's third and fourth goals were followed by Isaac Smith's second and then, to wrap up the premiership before three-quarter time, substitute player Matthew Suckling snapped to put Hawthorn 50 points up. One quarter remained. But the game was over.

West Coast was unrecognisable from the side that dismantled Hawthorn three weeks ago. When Smith kicked Hawthorn's ninth unanswered goal 12 minutes into the second term, the result had looked beyond doubt. Matthew Priddis had barely touched the ball and when he did, he hesitated. Nic Naitanui, loping and languid, had no physical impact and Kennedy had registered just three touches.

Then came the West Coast resurgence, of sorts. Josh Hill's superb running goal midway through the quarter was the Eagles' first since the opening two minutes of the game. From that point, the Eagles held Hawthorn until half time, but managed just one more goal. The scoring shots were neck and neck, but the difference five goals.

West Coast turned missed opportunity into a grand final day art form. Shuey should have kicked his second early in the opening term, but ignored a handball chance to team mate Jamie Cripps and missed. Generally reliable skipper Shannon Hurn sprayed a set shot early in the second after marking 40 metres out. Sam Butler and Priddis followed suit with bad misses.

The Eagles looked blinded by the sun at times and, more frequently, by the occasion.

Ten minutes before their bitter end, a blue and gold scarf was flung, perhaps in disgust, from a corporate box in the northern stand, floating past a triumvirate of club chairmen: Eddie McGuire, David Koch and Paul Little.

By comparison, not for one minute on this sultry October afternoon did the Hawks look anything but at home.