From the President: Pre-season cup

Good morning members,

I trust all of our Victorian members have survived an extraordinary three days of freakish weather in the state and that our Queensland and northern NSW members have not been, nor their property, victims of the wide spread floods we have been witnessing on our televisions.

What amazing times: prolonged droughts, climate change, extensive floods and damaging hail storms and high winds. The flood waters of the north will flow south and feed our rivers and dams sufficiently for our farmers to enjoy, I suspect, several good seasons.

But still we have no national water plan and most of the water that has fallen in the last week will run off into the sea. Again an abject waste of our most valuable resource, and one that if captured, stored and delivered appropriately could provide for our needs on the eastern and south-eastern sea board of our country for years, not to mention the opening up of hundreds of thousands of hectares of land for agricultural production.

We may be the lucky country, but we would have to be one of the most complacent and wasteful on earth.

Sorry, just getting carried away for a moment!

You will all know my views on the pre-season cup and again this weekend two of our warriors, Simon Taylor and Brad Sewell, have suffered serious injuries that will keep them out of the game for many months and weeks respectfully, while competing in that competition.

Sadly injuries can occur at any time; when training, participating in the pre-season and of course during the home-and-away competition. But we at Hawthorn have paid a very heavy price over the last two years when contesting the pre-season competition.

I wish Brad and Simon speedy recoveries and look forward to their being part of our run into September.

As unsettling as these injuries are, the Club has not had more depth within its playing group than we have now. I remain very confident about our prospects this year, and these injuries will not only spur the players and coaches to greater levels of endeavour, but give opportunities to some of our younger players.

I hate any of our players suffering injuries, as I would should they occur to any of my sons, but adversity often drives you further and faster. The playing group is in great shape, and they are supported magnificently though our members and sponsors, and there remains only one result that I will accept at the end of September, injuries or not.

So fellow Hawkers, do not despair, the mighty Hawks are set to soar in 2010, and I look forward to seeing the brown and gold proudly on display whenever we take to the field, be that at the MCG, Tassie or interstate.

We still have over 13,000 members from last year who have not renewed their membership. We need your support now. We need to show our players that when the going gets tough, the tough gets going.

And that’s what Hawthorn Football Club is all about.

Speak soon.

Jeff Kennett