The Kennedy Community Centre is growing rapidly before our eyes, with turf laid on both the AFL and AFLW training ovals prior to Christmas.

And nobody is more excited about the facility’s progress than Hawthorn premiership player Shane Crawford. 

The four-time All Australian joined fellow club greats Luke Hodge, Jason Dunstall and John Kennedy Jnr, alongside Hawthorn’s current AFL Senior Coach Sam Mitchell and newly appointed Capital Campaign Executive Gary Ayres in visiting Hawthorn's future home late last year. 

Safe to say, Crawford was blown away with the Dingley facility. 

“It's incredible, what a wonderful space,” the four-time Peter Crimmins Medallist said.

“The players are going to be spoilt and we're going to have a lot of success here.

“The weights are still the same as they always are, but just to be able to have facilities where you can recover, where you can train at high intensity, it's going to be a wonderful home for the Hawks.”

Crawford knows all too well the difference a new facility can make to a team’s success, having been a part of the club’s game-changing transition from Glenferrie Oval to Waverley Park in 2006.

Just two years after that monumental move, the Hawks would go on to win their 10th premiership, before going on to win a further three in a row in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Crawford believes the current-day Hawks could experience similar success once they move over to the Kennedy Community Centre. 

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“When we left Glenferrie Oval, it was a sad time but it was also a very exciting time because we were going to a new environment to hopefully prepare for success and really sort of launch our next phase of the club,” the former Hawthorn captain said.

“We just all embraced it and we were all in it together.

“We just charged along and we certainly had great success there, but this is going to take us to a whole new level.

“This is like never before. These players are spoilt - I'm jealous!

“I wish I was playing and starting my career, especially at the brand-new facility we have.

“We've got great history, but it's a new beginning for the Hawks and this is only going to help us maintain our presence right at the top of the ladder.”

Crawford further highlighted the difference this new facility would make to the entire club, with both Hawthorn’s AFL and AFLW programs looking to build on successful 2024 campaigns. 

“This is going to make a huge difference to all the players, even all the hard workers behind the scenes in the trenches,” the 1999 Brownlow Medallist said.

“Having a great facility like this just sort of elevates your levels even higher.

“Recovery, preparing, you know, looking to the future, planning all sorts of areas that you want to go to, this is going to help enormously so, yeah, bring on the Hawks.

“They've been amazing for such a long time, but we're going to be even more dangerous.”

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Although he has only visited the Kennedy Community Centre construction site once, Crawford's November visit was not his first time at the Dingley facility. 

In fact, the Hawthorn champion has quite a unique connection to the land which the Hawks will soon call home. 

“Well, one of my very first jobs when I started with Hawthorn, back then we needed to have a job, was working here,” the AFL Hall of Fame member said.

“It was a nursery... so this is very much a part of me.

“When I first heard that the Hawks were moving here, I couldn't believe it.

“I'm thinking, hang on, that's where I used to work. That's where I got sacked, actually!

“So some of the trees you may see floating around, there's a chance that I planted them a long, long time ago.

“It certainly feels like a connection and a part of the family.” 

Watch Crawford, Jason Dunstall, Luke Hodge and John Kennedy Jr visit the Kennedy Community Centre below.