Even though Hawthorn were debilitated by injuries at the start of the 2009 season, coach Alastair Clarkson says that was not the reason why their premiership defence went pear-shaped.

Clarkson said the Hawks were simply too poor in a number of other key areas although he admitted the number of players who made late starts after undergoing off-season operations was a contributing factor.

"There's so many variables that influence performance and that's certainly one of them," Clarkson said at the start of pre-season training on Wednesday.

"We don't make any excuses - we were poor in a number of areas.

"We'd gone from No.1 in the competition for scoring goals from the centre bounces to No.16. Now you can't just put that totally down to injuries.

"Of all the variables the injuries is an easy one to look at and say that had an influence.

"It did, but not to the point that it caused us to miss the finals.

"We need to get better in a lot of areas in our footy club and we'll be working across the summer to try and improve and show we can push ourselves into the eight next year."

Centre half-back Trent Croad did not play at all this year after suffering a serious foot injury in the 2008 grand final while ruckman Robert Campbell was forced into retirement due to a knee complaint.

Fellow premiership stars Rick Ladson, Stephen Gilham, Clinton Young and Xavier Ellis also missed large chunks of 2009 as the Hawks slumped from first to ninth.

According to Clarkson the squad - with the likely exception of Croad - will be firing for round one in 2010, in stark contrast to this season.

"We had a fair amount of post-season surgery last year and we've had a little bit this year as well but we've been able to get that surgery done a lot earlier this season," he said.

"We're anticipating that by early to mid November we'll have the bulk of our squad out on the track."

The Hawks will be boosted this year by the acquisition of Shaun Burgoyne from Port Adelaide and Josh Gibson from North Melbourne.

"We had a key target going into trade week to try and secure these two guys," Clarkson said.

"Shaun will play obviously mainly in the midfield and Josh down back so we are really pleased we were able to secure them in a period of the game when there were only six or seven trades done for the whole competition last year."

Croad's future remains murky after he continues to struggle with a foot injury.

"Croady's had a pretty severe injury. We tried over the course of a nine to 12 month period to let that injury heal naturally, the serious ligament injury he had in his foot," said Clarkson.

"That wasn't as successful as we'd like, particularly as we tried to ramp up his program to 95 to 100 per cent capacity.

"He was unable to withstand the rigours of that type of training and so the advice from the medicos at that point in time was to get two or three bones fused in his foot.

"He's had that surgery and he's walking around now and he's feeling really confident about his prospects going forward."

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