Sam Mitchell was traded to West Coast and Jordan Lewis to Melbourne in surprising moves that astonished the footy world last year. But on Tuesday morning, Clarkson said the Hawks' salary cap could have accommodated the two veterans and two young stars, and that recruitment pitches to O'Meara and Tom Mitchell had centred on learning their craft from the likes of Sam Mitchell and Lewis.

"Yeah, we would have been pretty tight, but we would have been able to," Clarkson told SEN.

"There's no point trying to trick anyone that our salary cap would have been really tight had we tried to squeeze them all in but we would have got there.

"We had already gone to several of our players. We would have had to done some manipulating of contracts, but not in an illegal way, to go to some of our other players and say 'listen, can you not take so much this year and take it later on'. That process had already begun whether Sam and Jordan were at the club or not.

"The actual recruiting of both Tom and Jaeger was along the lines of learning from [Luke] Hodge, Mitchell and Lewis for 12 months to two years so they were all independent of one another albeit."

Clarkson spoke on a range of topics, and revealed:

• Plans along the lines of the Mitchell-Lewis situation were not being made for Shaun Burgoyne and Josh Gibson, with the coach believing the duo were likely to see out their playing days at Hawthorn. "When we start out we say we want to stay at the one club, it's only when it gets toward the back end of your career is when you work out, well, I wanted to stay at the one club but does that mean playing for another 12 months or does that mean playing for another three years?" he said. "I'd imagine that Shaun Burgoyne and Josh Gibson aren't at the age now - albeit Sam was a very similar age - I don't think those two boys are going to be at the age where they're thinking to themselves of playing at another club."
• Medical advice given to Hawthorn about Jarryd Roughead assuming the captaincy in his return from cancer stated that not giving him the responsibility would have had a greater, and negative, impact on him. "We got assurances from the medical crew that he should be treated like any other player now and he shouldn't be restricted in his ability to be able to lead and captain the football club because there is some fear that there could be some recurrence down the track," Clarkson said. "That would unfair to Roughy, and in actual fact, they think it might be more of a burden for him if he'd been vice-captain of the footy club for six years and he's ready to captain the club and if the wasn't given to him."
• He was conscious of keeping his message to players fresh, as he gets ready to enter his 13th season in charge of the club. This is the fifth year in which he has been largely hands-off during the pre-season. "It's a long period of time and I've got to be mindful of how much my voice is in front of the players but it's also been a reason why some of our coaches have been able to step up and get opportunities elsewhere, because they've been given significant responsibilities across the pre-season and during the season too."
• The departure of former assistant coaches over the years to lead AFL clubs - including Western Bulldogs premiership coach Luke Beveridge, Carlton's Brendon Bolton, Richmond's Damien Hardwick, new Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan, West Coast's Adam Simpson, and GWS' Leon Cameron - caused some disruption. "Chris Fagan, Brendon Bolton, Damien Hardwick, these sorts of guys have been fantastic contributors to our footy club," Clarkson said. "But ... too often we hang on for too long and we've been guilty of that as a footy club in years gone by and we've even been guilty of it with the way that we've managed our list in recent times.

In round 17 this year, Clarkson will surpass John Kennedy snr as Hawthorn's longest-serving coach. Kennedy's record is 299 games, with four-time premiership-winning Clarkson entering the AFL season on 283 games.

"I'd probably prefer to retire at about round 15 then," joked Clarkson.

"The Godfather should always be the godfather of our footy club."