Drubbing, Hawthorn are able to negate Sandilands dominance with the assistance of the umpires at stoppages. They hold and block our quality mids and let their second tier mids do the clearances. If you think Freo could do the same as Hawthorn and get away with it, then you and I have been watching different games in recent years.
Look at the stats and for some reason in Tassie when Sandilands dominates the hitouts, Freo still lose the clearances and the free kicks. At Subi, Freo have generally won the clearances.
Hawthorn have also got large numbers to the stoppages against Freo and then hurt us with their skillfull uncontested football.
In any case, the team stats show an extremely strong relationship between hit outs and clearances. Don't believe everything you hear come out of Leigh Matthews mouth. Sandilands is very underrated.
