Looking to sweep all four Launceston games for the sixth time in nine years, the Hawks established a two-goal lead in the first quarter but kicked themselves out of the game thereafter as the Lions powered home 13.9 (87) to 7.18 (60).

Tasmanian-born Brisbane coach Chris Fagan was happy to have secured the Lions' first finals berth this decade and just their second since 2004.

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"It's a while ago isn't it?" Fagan mused. "Ten years ago I was in my 40s - it'd be good to still be in my 40s.

"It's exciting for the club, I think it's fair to say now that we will play finals.

"Now the opportunity over the next four weeks is to try and stay in good form and play well against the opponents that we have and see how high we can finish up the ladder."

After an arm wrestle in the first half, Brisbane broke the game apart in the third term with four goals in eight minutes through Charlie Cameron, Dayne Zorko, Cam Rayner and Hugh McCluggage.

The run of goals came in response to seven consecutive Hawthorn behinds, and the third-term scoreboard was both symmetrical and telling as the two sides finished with 5.1 and 1.5 respectively.

Fagan and Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson were unified in their assessment of where the game was won and lost.

ELSEWHERE IN SPORT

"We took our opportunities in front of goal and they missed some shots on goal they would say they should have kicked every day of the week, so I consider us fortunate today to win the game," Fagan said.

"We showed grit today to hang in there and then when we had our moments we were able to take them - I don't know what Clarko will say but I think he'll probably say they didn't take theirs."

Fagan was right.

"There's a lot of aspects of the game we were really happy about," Clarkson said.

"In a lot of facets of the game we really served it up to Brisbane today, but the one key component of the game is to be able to put a score on the scoreboard.

"I haven't spoken to Fages but I reckon they'd walk out of here a little bit relieved that they won that game of footy because they lost in a lot of key statistics in the game, but the statistic that's most important is what the scoreboard says."

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