McDowell re-signs, now to lock in Hawks’ stars
INVERLEIGH coach Mark McDowell will move to lock in star talent after signing a oneyear contract extension.
McDowell, who rejected a “plum” job as senior coach at Grovedale to remain with the Hawks, revealed his first port of call was to re-sign indemand players Jak KennedyHunt and Blake Hutchinson.
Kennedy-Hunt and Hutchinson are among a host of play- ers being courted by GFL clubs, but are likely to remain at Inverleigh as it bids to make amends for its grand final loss to Bell Post Hill last weekend.
“That will be the next move: to get all our good players signed up,” McDowell said, announcing he will enter a fifth season as Hawks’ coach. “We need to lock those guys away.”
Kennedy-Hunt, who booted 110 goals in 17 games this season, is crucial to McDowell’s hopes of wining a premiership next season. His decision is imminent. “At the moment, we don’t have any definite outs,” McDowell said. “Will Hamer is in Melbourne and it might be difficult for him but he hasn’t completely ruled out playing for us again. Other than that, everyone is on board.
“We’ve got a couple of players that we will target to add to the list.”
McDowell met with Inverleigh officials and senior players on Wednesday night to discuss his future.
He left feeling bullish about 2018 and notified the Tigers that he was out of the running for the top job.
“I wanted to wait until after the grand final, and after that meeting, I basically made my decision,” McDowell said.
“It was a really difficult decision for me to make. The lure of the GFL, full commitments from the players and a great standard of footy . . . my brain said I should go to Grovedale and do the job but at the moment I’ve got an emotional at- tachment to this playing group and that pulled me back.
“It’s just the relationships that I’ve built with the players, some of the supporters, the sponsors and the committee.
“You can see how much they are craving it (a premiership) and the positive feedback from the playing group also gave me a feel that I need to do this for another year.
“There were a few boxes that needed to be ticked in the meeting and they (the club) ticked every box.”