Troubled early by lowly Gold Coast at Aurora Stadium on Sunday, the Hawks overcame a 21-point deficit to win by 26 points.

The win was the Hawks' 11th from 14 starts this season. They are a game clear of four clubs, although second-placed Sydney have a game in hand.

Clarkson was pleased with how his side had managed a difficult first half of the season, in which they lost star Jarryd Roughead indefinitely with a recurrence of his melanoma, and have been without captain Luke Hodge for an extended period.

"All you can do in this game is keep notching up the challenges that you've got from week to week," Clarkson said.

"We're pleased that we get ourselves a little bit of a break now. We've worked really hard to get to this point in time, it'll be good to have deep breath for four or five days and then get ourselves ready for what promises to be a really fascinating battle against Port Adelaide on Thursday week."

But Clarkson said he hoped the Hawks could still get better.

"I'd like to think that we can improve a little bit. It's probably mainly to do with consistency from quarter to quarter.

"We've particularly played well when we've really needed to play well."

Clarkson said the Suns had made things tough for his team.

"It was a pretty tough old battle. The conditions made it a little bit difficult. Gold Coast started the game really well.

"We're really pleased. It wasn't a convincing victory but we ground away and we got the result we were after."

Hodge had returned from a knee injury, but wore a protective glove on Sunday after a recurrence of an old finger injury in recent weeks. He had 28 disposals across half-back, but his lack of recent game time was telling after the match.

"I'm blowing all right," he told Fox Footy.

Hodge said the Suns would cause problems for opposition sides in the run home, having regained a number of key players in recent weeks.

"Gold Coast have got a talented list. Their last 18 months have been hindered with a lot of injuries. They've had a lot of their main, senior high draft pick guys out," Hodge said.

"They had a few more back in today, and we can all see the talent they've got. They're going to be a good side if they can get on the park."

The Hawks were a point behind at half time, but Hodge said Clarkson had urged them to stay the course.

"They rushed us a fair bit and they had a better first half, it was as simple as that," Hodge said.

"We've learnt not to panic. We've got a pretty senior group so if we're not playing as good as what we wanted in the first half of there's a few simple tweaks here and there, we can normally hit the scoreboard pretty quick."

The skipper said the team had shown an ability to win in spite of duress.

"We've been able to get some wins when we haven't played great football. We've still been able to play some pretty good football in patches."

Teammate Isaac Smith said the Hawks had made heavy work of their opposition.

"We made it a tough contest when we probably had the opportunity to break it open at stages but it felt like in that third quarter we really got on top and controlled the ball in our half and put some pressure on them," Smith told ABC radio.

Suns coach Rodney Eade said poor skills had let his team down as they slumped to a 10th straight loss.

"They were just good enough to capitalise on our mistakes. Our kicking percentage after half time was the difference," Eade said.