Expect young Hawk Mark Williams to kick plenty more goals. But don't plan on seeing his Rifleman routine again any time soon. At least if coach Alastair Clarkson has anything to do with it.

The pressure was coming from every direction for rookie coach Alastair Clarkson as he entered into the practice match phase of his first year at the helm of Hawthorn.

He knew the microscope was on him after a couple of matches, so the last thing he needed was his new team to be struggling with the most important aspect of the game: kicking goals.

Enter Mark Williams. To Clarkson he was a forward pocket goalsneak who'd shown a bit the previous season. But that all changed after one afternoon's work against Geelong at Optus Oval.

"We just couldn't buy a goal in the pre-season last year and it was just out of luck more than anything that Mark Williams kicked seven in a practice match and that was the only time we scored goals," Clarkson recalled this week.

"Then early in the season we thought we needed to kick goals to at least make us competitive, so we thought we'd try him at full-forward."

In an eight-week period beginning in Round 4, Williams kicked 44 goals, including one bag of eight and two of six to shoot to the top of the Coleman Medal betting. A knee injury finished his season three weeks early and left him on 63 goals (and 35 behinds).

"He just went from strength to strength," Clarkson said. "He is very difficult to match up on because he is uncanny in the air yet so deceptively quick at ground level."

Clarkson would love to be able to claim some credit for the development of Williams' lightning fast leading or magnificently straight kicking, but he can't.

His one major claim to fame when it comes to the young Aboriginal star is that he was responsible for finishing off the "Rifleman".

As Williams started to find his feet in the AFL, he became a cult hero for his goalkicking celebrations, which involved him shooting at the ball with an imaginary rifle as it went through the goals.

A heart-to-heart with the new coach soon put an end to the theatrics.

"When you are a regular goalkicker, and I recall the greats like the Locketts, Hudsons and Dunstalls – Mark is nowhere near those guys at this point of time and may never get there – but when they had a shot for goal, they only ever celebrated the goal with their teammates," Clarkson said.

"More particularly the teammate who helped them get the goal because it was just an expectation that `I am having a shot at goal, this is my bread and butter and what I am expecting to do is convert it'.

"I am doing my job, acknowledge the teammate who helped me do it and let's get on with the game.

"I don't think it needs to be something that has to be played up with the crowd and the television cameras. It only gets under the nose of opposition players as well. It doesn't help him and it doesn't help us.

"It just brought unnecessary attention to him and he can do without that. I mean he doesn't like doing a lot of media anyway, so it actually suits him better if he goes about his business, plays his good footy and then goes back into the background again.

"Hopefully it (the rifle) won't happen again in my time here."

Those close to Williams also point at his maturing – he turns 23 next week – and a settled life in Melbourne with his partner, Belinda, and four-month-old daughter Mia as significant contributors to his rise to stardom.

He has come a long way since he walked into Glenferrie after being drafted from South Fremantle at No. 43 in the 2000 national draft.

The Williams clan – he is related to Richmond's Andrew Krakouer – hail from Katanning in the southern wheat belt of Western Australia.

He moved to Perth to play only the year he was drafted and understandably struggled when he arrived in Melbourne.

There are some legendary stories about Williams walking off the track midway through drills and fitness tests in the early days. It took a lot of patience and work by the previous administration, in particular recruiting manager John Turnbull, to ensure the shy kid didn't throw it all in and head home.

Former Fremantle coach Gerard Neesham, who coached Williams at the Clontarf Football Academy he set up to nurture Aboriginal talent, is heartened by his transformation.

"He seems to have matured into a good young bloke," Neesham said.

"It hasn't been easy for him. He has always been a bit volatile and was a bit on the edge, so a lot of credit must got to the Hawthorn people."

Neesham isn't surprised that at just 180cm Williams is making a living out of the goalsquare.

"One of the things I learnt in hindsight as a coach is it is always better to put a bloke in the forward line who has got a long history of kicking goals; don't try and make a full-forward," Neesham said.

"This boy has played in that area all his life. When he played with us he was at full-forward even though he was the right size to be a ruck-rover, but he just loved kicking goals.

"Gary Buckenara was the same. I played on him locally over here and one day he kicked 10 goals on me. We flogged his team but he played centre half-forward and was a great kicker of goals.

"That's what Mark Williams is, a great kicker of goals, and there are no rules about what size or shape you have to be to play full-forward. It's whether you can kick goals, and this kid knows how to."

Clarkson watched Williams kick a matchwinning bag of eight against Fremantle last week and knew it wasn't the way for the future of the Hawks. He desperately wants the load to be shared, for Jarryd Roughead, Trent Croad or Ben Dixon to snare some of the limelight.

But the Hawks coach also knows that in Williams, who will play just his 54th game tomorrow against Collingwood, he has a special talent who is going to command headlines for years to come.

"He is starting to get a real confidence that he can significantly influence the outcome of games," Clarkson said. "He has really emerged as a very, very important player for our side and he's still got plenty of good years in front of him."