Inside Hawthorn's new $113m home

Subscribe to Hawks Insiders for the most in-depth and wide ranging Hawthorn cover there is. From exclusive interviews to analysis, match recaps to podcasts, the Insiders have you covered.What a difference a year makes. When the Hawks Insiders team last visited the Kennedy Community Centre in November 2024, there wasn’t a single blade of grass on the AFLW and Community Oval.This time around — when Ash, Danny and Daz were given a grand tour by lifelong Hawks nuffies, CEO Ash Klein and COO Jacob Attwood — we couldn’t quite believe our eyes. The grass was down. The ovals were defined. The buildings were a hive of activity. Players were training the house down, staff were embedded, and the Kennedy Community Centre had gone from a major construction project (and HI regular Paddy Malone’s dream) to a fully functioning football home.🎧 You can hear our full recap in the podcast above.From scale to substanceLast year, it was impossible not to be overwhelmed by the sheer ambition of the site. Two full-sized ovals sitting side by side on a vast parcel of land, with room to grow. A facility that felt big, bold and future-facing, but still very much mid-build.This visit was different. The scale is still jaw-dropping, but now it’s the detail that hits you. You don’t need to imagine how the place will work anymore. You can see it IRL.Players move seamlessly from track to gym to recovery. Coaches huddle in meeting rooms purpose-built for collaboration. Staff are already talking about routines, habits and standards being set simply by walking through the door each morning.This feels less like a training ground for players only, and more like an elite workplace for the club holistically, designed to make everyone better at what they do.Two ovals, two very different advantagesThe contrast between visits is perhaps clearest when you step onto the AFLW and Community Oval.In 2024, it was still dirt and timelines. In 2025, it’s a surface that looks (and feels) ready.The ground is a genuine AFL-sized venue, with dimensions that immediately change how Hawthorn’s AFLW side can play. Anyone who has watched games at Frankston will understand the significance of that. More width. More space. More opportunity to run, spread and use the weapons this list actually has.Standing well inside the boundary, we were told: this is where the Frankston boundary line would have been.That alone tells you how transformative this move could be for AFLW matchday football when the games start being played here.Add in the pavilion, the coach’s box (which may or may not be larger than some inner-city apartments), and the planned viewing mound on the wing, and it’s easy to imagine Dingley quickly becoming a genuine community football destination.Indoors, uninterruptedIf there’s one space that consistently drew wide eyes and quiet disbelief, it was the indoor training facility.Fully enclosed. Turf strong enough for boots. Long enough that none of us (at our stage of life, anyway) could kick from one end to the other.The most striking detail? The centre square is built to exact AFL dimensions, allowing proper centre bounce and ruck work even when the weather turns.And as was pointed out to us, someone has already managed to kick a football onto the roof, which probably tells you everything you need to know about how freely this space is being used.Recovery, routine, and players choosing to be thereAnother major shift from last year: the facility is already becoming a place players want to spend time.The recovery zone — hot, cold and magnesium pools, sauna, lap pool — is in constant use. We were told players are coming in on days off, after hours, and treating the place as a second home rather than an obligation.That matters. When players choose to be at the club, standards rise naturally.As Conor Nash told us briefly after training, the sense is that the group is already preparing better simply because everything they need is under one roof.Honouring the past, without being stuck in itThere’s been some discussion among fans about the museum space, particularly compared to the more traditional setup at Waverley.What stood out on this visit wasn’t size, but intent.Rather than walls of static memorabilia, the Kennedy Community Centre leans into interactivity and experience. Pull-out drawers of historic jumpers. Digital timelines. A row of landline phones where you can hear the voice of legendary coaches and players and even cop a spray from the KCC’s namesake.And then, tucked behind a door, a space designed to feel like you’re back in the rooms at Glenferrie Oval. Complete with the smell of liniment in the air.A genuine destination clubFacilities don’t win premierships. But in such a tight competition they do make a difference. As we discussed on the pod, this is one of the few remaining areas in modern footy that sits outside the soft cap, and Hawthorn has clearly gone all-in.Debt-free. Land owned outright. Space to develop future stages including community sport, medical facilities and hospitality. This is about long-term stability and growth as much as football performance.And from a recruitment point of view? It’s hard to imagine a stronger opening pitch to a draftee walking through these doors for the first time. Imagine being Cameron Nairn or Ollie Greeves or Jack Dalton and having this be your first experience of a professional footy club. Talk about setting a high bar.See you at the KCC?Our pre-season live event is one of the highlights of the Hawks Insiders calendar. Last year even Sam and Lyndall Mitchell made a cameo.But in 2026, we’re taking things up a notch. Thanks to the incredible support of our friends at the Hawthorn Football Club, we can finally confirm what we’ve been holding close to our chests for the past few weeks:The Hawks Insiders 2026 Season Launch will be held at the Kennedy Community Centre, in the rooms above the AFLW Pavilion, on Wednesday, March 4.It’s the ultimate two-for-one deal. The chance to get among the action at our pre-season panel, and get a close-up look at the KCC for yourself.Full details to come in the new year, but space will be extremely limited. So get out your 2026 calendars and put a big circle around March 4 now.Follow us on social media through the links below:Twitter | Facebook | Instagram This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit hawksinsiders.substack.com/subscribe Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.