Australian Football

Tuggeranong

The southern third of suburban Canberra is known officially as Tuggeranong, although more commonly referred to simply as ‘the Valley’, and a football club representative of the region has been a member of Canberra football’s elite tier for almost four decades.

The club was actually formed as long ago as 1968 by a group of Department of Supply employees, recently transferred to Canberra from Melbourne. Adopting red and white as its colours, the team bore the name of Eastlake Woden in recognition of the fact that it was sponsored at the time by the Eastlake Football Club. Eastlake Woden later became South Woden, and later still Sutherland.[1] In 1976 Sutherland was admitted to the ACTAFL’s under nineteens competition before adding reserves and senior teams in 1977 and 1979 respectively.

Initially, the club found the going tough in all grades, but following a name change to Tuggeranong in 1983 fortunes began to improve. In 1986, captain-coached by Hans Heystraten, senior premiership success was finally achieved following a thrilling one-point grand final defeat of one of Canberra’s foremost perennial football forces in the shape of Queanbeyan.

In 1994 the club welcomed former St Kilda, Ainslie and Central District identity Kevin ‘Cowboy’ Neale as senior coach and immediately adopted the Cowboys emblem, which it retained until forging an alliance with AFL club Hawthorn in 2003, whereupon it became known as the Hawks. Although further premiership success has eluded Tuggeranong the club has become a rich breeding ground for player talent, with the likes of Justin Blumfield (Essendon), Aaron Hamill (Carlton and St Kilda), Stephen Hall (Woodville-West Torrens), Brett Howman (Sturt) and Dale Argall (East Fremantle) going on to enjoy greater success in higher level competitions.

The Hawks struggled during the first decade of the twenty-first century culminating in three successive wooden spoons from 2008 to 2010. Between 2011 and 2013 the Hawks competed in the Eastern Conference of the NEAFL but without once qualifying for the finals. Indeed, in 2012 and 2013 they ended up with the wooden spoon.

Since resuming in AFL Canberra's First Grade in 2014 Tuggeranong initially performed much better, reaching the finals three times in succession, but following that the 2017 season was one to forget as they managed just 3 wins for the year to finish in fifth place on the six team premiership ladder. Even worse was to follow during a 2018 season which saw the Hawks lose all 15 games played to plummet to the wooden spoon.