President Richard Garvey Captain(s) Jarryd Roughead | Coach Alastair Clarkson | |
Home ground Melbourne Cricket Ground (Capacity: 100,018)
University of Tasmania Stadum (Capacity: 23,000) | ||
The Hawthorn Football Club's 2017 season will be its 93rd season in the Australian Football League (AFL).
Contents
Club summary
The 2017 AFL season will be the 121st season of the VFL/AFL competition since its inception in 1897; having entered the competition in 1925, it will be the 93rd season contested by the Hawthorn Football Club. Tasmania and iiNet continued as the club's two major sponsors, as they had done since 2006 and 2013 respectively, while Adidas continued to manufacture the club's on-and-off field apparel, as they had done since 2013. Hawthorn continued its alignment with the Box Hill Hawks Football Club in the Victorian Football League, allowing Hawthorn-listed players to play with the Box Hill Hawks when not selected in AFL matches.
Senior personnel
Alastair Clarkson will continue as the club's head coach for the thirteenth consecutive season. In a surprise announcement, Jarryd Roughead replaced Luke Hodge as the club's captain on 20 January 2017 after the latter had led the club since 2011.
It was announced in December 2016 that Stuart Fox would leave his position as the club's Chief Executive Officer to take up the same position with the Melbourne Cricket Club at the end of February 2017.
Playing list changes
The following summarises all player changes between the conclusion of the 2016 season and the beginning of the 2017 season.
Pre-season matches
The club will play three practice matches as part of the 2017 JLT Community Series, and will be played under modified pre-season rules, including nine-point goals.
Fixture summary
The full fixture was announced on 27 October 2016. The Melbourne Cricket Ground will once again act as Hawthorn's primary home ground, hosting six of the club's eleven home games, with four home games to be played at their secondary home ground, University of Tasmania Stadium, in Launceston, and one home game to be played at Etihad Stadium against the Western Bulldogs in round 23. The club's opponents for the four games in Launceston are St Kilda, Brisbane Lions, Greater Western Sydney and North Melbourne in rounds six, eight, 16 and 21 respectively, while the club will play Adelaide, Collingwood, Geelong, Gold Coast and Sydney twice during the regular season.
The Hawks will start the 2017 season with an away match against Essendon, which is set to welcome up to ten of its banned players back from a season-long suspension which had spanned the entire 2016 season, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in round one; due to the weighted rule, it will be the only time the clubs meet during the regular season. The club's first home game will come the following round, when it hosts 2016 finalists Adelaide at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in round two. It will travel to Adelaide twice for matches against Port Adelaide and Adelaide (for a second time) in rounds 11 and 14 respectively, while it will also travel to the Gold Coast, Sydney and Perth once each, in rounds three, ten and eighteen respectively. Additionally, it will play two Friday night matches (both against Sydney) and two Thursday night matches (both at the Adelaide Oval) during the regular season, while nine of the club's 21 matches (with the round 23 match against the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium still to be scheduled) will be broadcast on free-to-air.
Based on its finishing position from 2016, Hawthorn's fixture was rated the second-most difficult (only behind Greater Western Sydney) by The Age; it is the fifth consecutive season in which it has been dealt either the most or second-most difficult fixture of any club.