Hawthorn captain Sam Mitchell says the reigning AFL premiers are not even thinking about what they need to do to revive their ailing finals bid.

The Hawks' stuttering premiership defence reached a low ebb on Saturday night when they were thrashed by 88 points by the Western Bulldogs.

It included a woeful first half, in which they were outscored 13.10 (88) to 0.4 (4).

The huge loss left Hawthorn in 11th spot, a win and a big percentage gap outside the top eight.

But Mitchell said given their current poor form, finals were not on their minds.

"We're not really thinking about that at this stage," he said on Monday.

"We've only had six wins, that's not going to get us too far, so we just need to work on getting our seventh win.

"They're not coming too easily at the moment.

"We need to find a way to win and we've got an opportunity this week (against North Melbourne) down in Tassie, where we usually play pretty good footy.

"We put a pretty disappointing performance down there last time we played there, against Brisbane, as well, so we're just looking at trying to get our seventh win."

Mitchell said it was clear their performance against the Dogs was well below the required standard and they would be reviewing it intensively.

"We're pretty disappointed with the way it ended up, we have to have a good look at the way we went about it," he said.

"We know that's not the level of footy we expect of ourselves and there's a bit of improvement to come."

He said coach Alastair Clarkson was as "shell-shocked" by the outcome as the players.

"We warmed up really well, I didn't know it was coming," Mitchell said.

"I don't think Clarko did either, so he was disappointed just like everyone else."

Adding insult to injury, Mitchell said he had beer thrown over him by a spectator at halftime, but he said he understood the anger of supporters.

"They go to work all day every day and they want to front up on a Saturday night or Saturday afternoon and watch their team play and they're passionate about it and we love that about our fans," he said.

"It's disappointing for them when we put together a performance like that, so I can understand what they go through.

"If you're going to listen to the fans when everything's going well and they pat you on the back then you better be willing to listen when things aren't going that well and they have the right to say whatever they like."

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