Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson vows to return to bushfire-affected communities in an effort to offer a helping hand

The Hawks headed to bushfire-ravaged communities to lend a hand earlier this month, and coach Alastair Clarkson vows to return, and has flagged ongoing support for those in need.

Alastair Clarkson has vowed to continue lending a helping hand. Picture: AAP Image/Michael Dodge

Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson has vowed to return to bushfire-ravaged communities that are embarking on the long road to rebuilding.

And he said the support to Gippsland and northern Victoria could last beyond two years.

Clarkson and a swag of Hawthorn players — who will play a practice match against St Kilda in Morwell next Friday in aid of those affected — recently travelled to northern and eastern Victoria to lend a hand, but said not being able to get into crucial regions and a desperate need for ongoing support had left him with unfinished business.

“That area in mid-Gippsland and west Gippsland was our zone and where we recruited our players for a long, long time prior to the national competition and the draft,” he said.

“(Premiership player) Xavier Ellis came from Lakes Entrance and it was when his father Geoff and the organisation that he worked for, an abalone company in Mallacoota, got burned to the ground, it was like ‘how can we come down and help?’.

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Hawthorn players visited Buchan to assist locals rebuilding after bushfires. Picture: Matt McLeish.

“They said ‘well, no one can get in and out of Mallacoota, but we’ve got some mates at Buchan that have been hit pretty hard’.”

That’s where it started. Clarkson and the Hawthorn crew linked up with local Scott Cummings – not the former footballer, but a local Buchan firefighter whose grandfather played for Hawthorn in the 1930s.

He thought it was a prank when he answered his phone and it was Clarkson, and “took a bit of convincing otherwise”, but managed to co-ordinate the Hawks’ first venture into the region earlier this month, where players rebuilt fences and offered a helping hand.

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“(Cummings) was heading up the operation in terms of how to fight the fires in the first instance and then how to clean up afterwards,” Clarkson said.

Then it was the Ovens and Murray region, which was hit hard by fires over the new year period.

“There’s about six or eight of our players that are from up Ovens and Murray area – Ben McEvoy and Jon Ceglar in particular, and their dads still live in the region and they’re blue-collar lads, on the land, tough as all buggery these old fellas,” Clarkson said.

Hawthorn players and coaches will return to bushfire-hit towns to offer support. Picture: Matt McLeish.

“They provided us with a great link to the community up there, where we could help. Our players were only too happy to roll up the sleeves and get to work and try to get those two communities back going again.”

But there is much more work to do, and Clarkson is adamant that the Hawks will return to offer more help – and soon.

“This isn’t something that’s going to be an overnight thing. We’ll be back up there again in the next couple of weeks to provide some more assistance and it’s going to be ongoing for six months, 12 months, it might even be two years before we genuinely see the full recovery take place,” he said.

“Within two weeks of us being there, the rain comes and outside you’ve seen burnt leaves and blackened trunks on trees and then the paddocks are green.

“It’s a funny thing, life’s cycle. It gets back going again. And we’ve got to get the people back going again now, too.

“That’s an obligation that we want to give – especially to those two communities.”

Originally published as Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson vows to return to bushfire-affected communities in an effort to offer a helping hand