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.
Read the full story in the Monash Leader.