Victorian Netball League: Hawthorn Football Club joins forces with Monash University Storm

Victorian Netball League club Monash University Storm will be rebranded Hawks Netball after forming a partnership with AFL club Hawthorn.

Hawks Netball’s Nat Billings and Monique Tarrant put Hawthorn’s Jack Gunston and Brendan Whitecross through their paces.

Victorian Netball League club Monash University Storm will be rebranded Hawks Netball after forming a partnership with AFL club Hawthorn.

The partnership will see Hawthorn become the naming rights partner of the VNL club and assist it in providing young netballers with access to elite talent pathways.

The Hawks will have three teams competing in the competition — Championship Division, Division 1 and 19&under — and will also work closely with Netball Victoria to support the Eastern Zone academy program.

“We’re really pleased to be part of one of the most famous teams in Australia at the moment,” Hawks Netball president Shane O’Sullivan said. “We’re very excited, we can’t wait to get going to be honest.”

O’Sullivan said, while the nuts and bolts of the arrangement were still being worked out, he could see great possibilities once the Hawks’ proposed 28-hectare training headquarters in Dingley were completed.

“It’s (the partnership) been in the works for the last three or four months,” O’Sullivan said. “It had to be approved by the Hawthorn board and all that. But things have been rolling along nicely. (The details) are still being worked out. Once the (Dingley) facility is built there’ll be more space for us.

“(But) we’ll have access to their sports science and all that and they’re helping us with an administrator.”

Hawks senior player Kim Commane said all at the club had been buzzing following the announcement of the partnership and she was hopeful Hawthorn’s AFL expertise would rub off on the netballers and help them develop their elite sporting careers.

“It’s so good being with a club like Hawthorn, to continue to develop as players and to learn from people that are experts in the field,” she said. “It’s just so exciting having the backing and support of a club like Hawthorn. The pre-season has been really good, we’re doing all the right things.

“It was all pretty hush hush but we were kept in the loop and found out in December, just before we broke up for Christmas.”

Hawks’ Kim Commane tries her hand with the oval ball.

Commane said she hoped the partnership would also bring Hawthorn supporters across to the sport of netball.

“So, obviously, it will be great for us girls but for netball as a whole as well,” she said.

Hawthorn chief executive Justin Reeves said he was excited by the addition of a new community partner, adding to the club’s growing sporting family.

“We are more than just a football club at Hawthorn and this partnership is a fantastic opportunity to venture into a new community sporting code and display our commitment and investment into women’s sport, in addition to what we are already doing in football with our VFL and VFLW sides,” he said.

“We are really excited by the partnership and look forward to continuing to grow the club’s footprint in women’s and men’s sports.”

Netball Victoria chief executive Rosie King praised the Hawthorn/Monash partnership.

“We applaud Hawthorn Football Club’s investment into grassroots netball by supporting our emerging talent coming through the netball pathway,” she said.

“Netball’s profile continues to shine, which is enormously attractive to other elite sporting organisations, and so we are delighted with this new partnership.”

The VNL season begins on Sunday, April 29 with the Hawks set to take on the Peninsula Waves at the State Netball Hockey Centre.

New partners (from left) Jarman Impey, Kim Commane, Jack Gunston, Monique Tarrant, Brendan Whitecross and Nat Billings.