ONCE upon a time, Mark Williams was the Hawthorn forward line. It was only a little over three years ago, in fact, that a very young Hawthorn side beat the very good Brisbane Lions on a Saturday afternoon at the MCG.

Williams kicked six goals that day, tucking his long curly hair behind his ears with each one and his new coach, Alastair Clarkson, spent his first winning press conference longing for a time when his 180-centimetre full-forward was an option, rather than the only one. Even if a very good one.

That time has arrived, well and truly. Williams kicked five goals yesterday, from six kicks, which made him smile. He kicked the last after the final siren, raising both arms to the celebrating Great Southern Stand crowd. Jarryd Roughead kicked six goals of Hawthorn's 24 goals, and Lance Franklin did likewise. "It was good," Williams said. "I sort of slipped in under the radar."

As it turned out, Williams wasn't even there when his load was lifted. He was playing as well as he had ever been at the start of last season, and had scored 13 goals in the first four games when his knee started to feel sore, and didn't seem to be getting much better.

An eight-week injury stretched into 12 weeks, and before he knew it, he had no season left. Having motivated himself to be back a month before the finals, Williams eventually had to concede that his knee wasn't good enough to play on, and that he'd do himself more harm than good by forcing it to.

All the while, he was heading to the football in a suit each weekend, watching his team become a finals side, watching Franklin become a superstar, watching Roughead follow right behind and hearing his coach talk about how Hawthorn wasn't, and could never be, all about Franklin.

"It was a hard time," Williams said last night. "It was a frustrating time because we'd done a lot of losing and I wanted to be out there with the boys when we were finally winning some games.

"In a way, it was good that I'd been kicking some goals when it happened; it made me think I could come back and play well again, but at the same time, it made it more annoying that I couldn't play and keep going.

"I had to sit there and watch, and I enjoyed watching. It was good to see the boys play so well and see Buddy and Roughie become the men they are and play so well. I wanted to be there, too, but it was good to see how far our club went."

Williams was back by the end of last season — training, at least, which has made settling back in alongside the new, bigger and better Franklin and Roughead an easier thing to do. While he watched them play last year, Williams felt like he was falling behind and wondered what he'd be needed to do when he did, finally, get back.

Things sprang quickly back to mind as soon as he started to train with his teammates again, he felt absolutely like one of them again throughout pre-season training and has enjoyed being one of the crowd in his four games back this year. In which, incidentally, he has now kicked a dozen goals, only one fewer than in his more recognised start to last season.

He's given his coaches another toy to play with, too. "Mark's proven over a long period of time playing forward that he's very, very dangerous if you get the ball into him quickly, as are Roughead and Franklin," Clarkson said after yesterday's match. "We're really happy with our forward mix, but it will be a challenge from week to week because there'll be different strategies that opposition sides use.

"He's done a lot of work, we know he's a very talented player and he's really fitted well into our forward structure. He's a very important player for our side."

For Williams, simply playing again is enough. "I'm just loving being out there," he said. "It hasn't felt too different but it is really good that there's more of us down there. It's been good to come back and sneak in and not have the focus be on me.

"It feels like a long while ago now that I was the one kicking the goals. Time in football goes quickly, but that's all credit to Buddy and Roughie and also to our midfield for being so good to all of us down in the forward line.

"That's one thing I've seen since I've come back, our midfielders get it to us so many times that we have to kick goals, it doesn't matter who's down there. We've all got a chance to kick a goal, everyone can contribute and that makes us into a better team."