West Coast coach John Worsfold admits facing Hawthorn on the rebound is a formidable way to try to recover from one of the biggest losses in the AFL club's history.

Both Hawthorn and the Eagles are looking to bounce back from disappointing results last round, the Hawks a loss to North Melbourne and the Eagles a 135-point belting from Geelong.

While the Hawks are intent on returning immediately to the winners' list, Worsfold is aware that even if the Eagles produce their best, victory is an unlikely prospect, given the talent gap between the two clubs.

"Really, just from my perspective I want to see the players sticking to what we're asking them to try to work on and we're hopeful that that means it will keep us in the game, give us a chance of winning the game," Worsfold said.

"The gap in terms of talent is an unknown thing, we'll get measured on that as well.

"But from our point of view, we want the players to get out there and just have a real go at what we've asked them to do this week."

He said Geelong and Hawthorn back-to-back had always been a scary proposition.

"I looked at that earlier in the year and I thought it looked pretty tough, it looks a bit tougher at the moment," he said.

"All we can do is prepare the players and they've got a lot of pride, they want to go out there and do their best and that's what we're expecting from them."

Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson said his side had their own problems to deal with.

"We've just got to focus on the things we do well, we didn't do those things too flash last week against the Kangaroos," Clarkson said.

"We need to be prepared to move the ball well and get back to playing the brand of footy we had been playing earlier in the season.

"West Coast have always been a formidable opponent against us and as we saw with the Kangaroos last week, against Fremantle they were really poor and their performance against us was first-class.

"A week's a long time in footy and performances can change around, so we've got to make sure we prepare really well."

The Hawks will benefit from the return from injury of two experienced stars - midfielder Shane Crawford and key defender Trent Croad.

"They're two pretty handy ins for us and they'll add some leadership as well as some stability to the side," Clarkson said.

For the Eagles, their task has been made harder by the loss of David Wirrpanda (back), Brett Jones (ankle) and Sam Butler (groin), while premiership midfielder Chad Fletcher was dropped.

Butler's latest injury is a concern, given that until the past three rounds, ongoing groin problems has prevented him playing an AFL game since the 2006 grand final.

But Worsfold said the latest recurrence was not serious.

"Whether it's just some scar tissue that he's torn a little bit we're not really sure," he said.

"It's only minor, we expect that with a two-week break, with this week and the bye week, that he'll be right to go."

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