{"id":11230,"date":"2026-05-14T08:56:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/11230\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T08:56:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T08:56:09","slug":"afl-great-mark-williams-lands-career-first-aflw-role-at-hawthorn-after-melbourne-sacking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/11230\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL great Mark Williams lands career-first AFLW role at Hawthorn after Melbourne sacking"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\"><a class=\"css-1lg16vp-StyledTextLink ezegcyi0\" data-link-type=\"article-inline\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/hawthorn-hawks\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Hawthorn<\/a> have added some legendary star power to their <a class=\"css-1lg16vp-StyledTextLink ezegcyi0\" data-link-type=\"article-inline\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/aflw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><a class=\"css-1lg16vp-StyledTextLink ezegcyi0\" data-link-type=\"article-inline\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/afl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">AFL<\/a>W program after luring AFL premiership coach Mark \u201cChoco\u2019\u2018 Williams their way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Williams, who coached Port Adelaide to the AFL flag in 2004, has spent the past five seasons at Melbourne as the Demons\u2019 head of development.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">The 67-year-old, who played 286 games across stints with Collingwood and Brisbane during a decorated VFL\/AFL career, will head up Hawthorn\u2019s AFLW development program.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-178igh4-StyledParagraph e1s06mna1\">Know the news with the 7NEWS app: <a class=\"css-h2mhmv-StyledContextualLink e1s06mna0\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/app?utm_source=7NEWS&amp;utm_medium=contextual-link-app&amp;utm_campaign=7news-app\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Download today Arrow<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Hawthorn finished fourth on the AFLW ladder last year with an impressive 9-3 record, before being knocked out of the finals in straight sets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cWe are thrilled to add a person of Mark\u2019s calibre to our football club, he will benefit our program immensely,\u201d Hawthorn\u2019s AFLW general manager Keegan Brooksby said in a statement on Thursday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cWith almost five decades in football, Mark\u2019s experience speaks for itself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">\u201cHe is an expert at building relationships and cultivating environments where players thrive.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Williams coached Port Adelaide for 12 seasons before leaving at the end of 2010.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">He took up assistant and development roles at Greater Western Sydney and Richmond, before playing an important off-field role at Melbourne, which included the club\u2019s 2021 flag.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-1n6q21n-StyledParagraph e4e0a020\">Williams\u2019 extraordinary service to the game was recognised in 2023 when he was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"css-6fiqrm-StyledLinkWrapper e1y7kr221\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/afl\/alastair-clarkson-speaks-out-on-disturbing-effect-of-coach-axings-in-wake-of-michael-voss-departure-c-22283716\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>Alastair Clarkson speaks out on \u2018disturbing\u2019 AFL issue<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-xp0jgm-StyledTimeToRead e1y7kr223\">2 min read<\/p>\n<p><\/a><a class=\"css-6fiqrm-StyledLinkWrapper e1y7kr221\" href=\"https:\/\/7news.com.au\/sport\/afl\/gold-coast-coach-damien-hardwick-blasts-journo-over-repeated-questions-about-staffers-gambling-link-c-22283628\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>Probing journo gets shut down by explosive coach: \u2018Are we clear?\u2019<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-xp0jgm-StyledTimeToRead e1y7kr223\">2 min read<\/p>\n<p><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorn have added some legendary star power to their AFLW program after luring AFL premiership coach Mark \u201cChoco\u2019\u2018&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[77,12143,6850,260,262,261],"class_list":{"0":"post-11230","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-melbourne","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-aflw","10":"tag-hawthorn-hawks","11":"tag-melbourne","12":"tag-melbourne-demons","13":"tag-sport"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}