You cut your footy teeth in the 70s and 80s when the Hawks were a power of the competition, so what are your favourite memories of that time?
When I was very young I supported Richmond and it was only when I was a teenager that I switched to Hawthorn. And they're great memories because the team was so successful during that period.
 
Were you a rusted-on diehard fan who went to the footy week-in and week-out?
I was playing a lot of sport back in the days of traditional Saturday afternoon footy. I played for Balwyn through to my 20s, but I stopped when I started to get hurt a bit. I was only an average footballer, but the one strength I had was my speed. So once they started to catch up to me I was in a bit of trouble.
 
Who were favourite players growing up?
I loved Leigh Matthews and Dermott Brereton and I had a real soft spot for Gary Ayres. I just loved the way he went about his footy.
 
You had a brilliant career in the law, which is a demanding profession. Was it hard to follow the football while throwing so much into your job?
I'm never someone who has taken my work too seriously. Obviously it's a compartment of your life where you have to work hard, but I've always worked to live, not lived to work. That's always been my philosophy.
 
How did your support for the club translate into becoming involved?
I became a member after '96. I was anti the merger with Melbourne and there was this big call to arms, so I joined up. But I didn't get involved with the club until 2003 when (president) Ian Dicker asked me to the join the board. There was no person with a legal background on the board, so I was invited to join.
 
And the move to Waverley was your first big project.
Yeah, I pretty much negotiated the move on my own with Mirvac. There was a heads of agreement, but it was pretty loose. There were so many holes you could have driven a truck through it, as often happens when you deal with the government and it's done on a handshake. I got my teeth into that and made sure we got the right outcome.
 
And you would have to say it has been an unqualified success and a brilliant thing for the club.
It's an outstanding facility. But what we're trying to get done in the next three or six years is set the club up for the next 10 to 20 years. We'll possibly outgrow this place and may want an alternative facility to this that we can close down and lock people out of. For a club like us that's a big agenda item. Where are we going to be in 20 years? When you look at other clubs like Collingwood and West Coast who are doing another refurbishment, we don't want to fall behind in that area. With free agency coming in, I think your facilities and your physical environment plays a big part in attracting talent. That's on our agenda to get done and we're doing the studies on that now.
 
Do you own this facility?
Come 2015, all the covenants fall away and we own it outright. There are some use covenants that continue, such as the oval with Mirvac, but we are on title now. But as to its long-term viability, that's something we are already looking at and we have brought a consultant in to look at the space we have and what we might need in the next 20 years. The board will then make an assessment about what we need to do.
 
From a football point of view, it must be frustrating for the coaching staff and players to have to drive somewhere else to have a closed session.
We have to drive to a school or a secluded venue somewhere, so we want to have the option to close it off. And there are other ideas about elite academies that we have in the mix so they're the things we're consciously working on and that want to get determined in the next three or six years. Whether it gets built in that time is another question, but I want the footprint to be laid out.
 
This all sounds ambitious. It's the talk from someone who is in charge of a very large football club. People talk about the big clubs in Melbourne and traditionally it has only been Collingwood, Essendon, Carlton and Richmond. Does that bother you?
I read about these 'big clubs' in the paper and we don't get mentioned, which I find surprising. I think on any measure - assets, members and profit to name just a few - we're a big club. Am I concerned that we don't get mentioned? Not really because the people involved at Hawthorn and are close to Hawthorn know where we're at. Perhaps the label is a bit irrelevant, but one of my mantras while president is to "think big". I want to get some big things done. Now, I don't pretend to have influence on the guys who get things once they're on the ground, but I can influence the environment in which they go out and do it.
 
Your predecessor used to talk about Tasmania with almost a missionary zeal. Judging by the message boards and the online community, it did irk some supporters, who would have liked a bit more love towards the club's Victorian roots and heritage. What's the deal with Tasmania and is Hawthorn still there for the long haul?
Clearly we're in the hands of the government after this five-year deal ends. My aim is to make it impossible for the government of the day to end that arrangement and for us to become so valuable that they will just want to rubber-stamp the agreement because it's just too important. If they end it then we won't be playing four games a year because the AFL won't schedule us there. Financially, we've done the modeling and for us to take those four games to the MCG, versus the sponsorship we get from the government in Tasmania, there isn't much of a difference. We don't make a whole lot more money. But we don't just do it for the financial reasons. Tassie has been good for us; we have been good for Tassie and it's a great relationship.
 
Will you be as much of a salesman for Tasmania as Jeff?
I'd like to be, but I'm not sure I have it in me. But we want to be there long term.
 
Has having North Melbourne there changed your thinking?
No, but we have been encouraging of that. The more AFL there is in Tasmania, the better. We have spent a lot of time, money and emotion in Tasmania and if they match us on those three things, then fantastic. Good luck to them.
 
For now the deal is four home and away games and one pre-season game. Would you play more if you could? Or do you sense that any more might be a tipping point for your supporters in Victoria?
I think you might be right. With the election last year, I gave my email address to members and the number one issue, without question was why we play four games in Tasmania. When I explained sponsorship and having nearly 10,000 members down there - which is a sixth of our membership - then four games down there out of 22 seemed to be about about right.
 
The other market you have cultivated is New Zealand, albeit with small and deliberate steps. Now St Kilda - with two former Hawthorn executives leading the way - have come along with more ambitious plans. How do you feel about that?
We're very relaxed about it. You can't spread yourself too thin. Look at North, they're playing two games in Tassie and now they're talking about Ballarat. That's their call. But Hawthorn won't do that. Melbourne is our heartland. We saw an opportunity in New Zealand with regards to playing talent, but we won't be playing games there. We have invested time and money there and we have some arrangements that we intend to keep, but we're not troubled by what St Kilda is doing. It's great that they're there and we look forward to seeing how they go about doing it.
 
An issue that has arisen is gaming and betting. North Melbourne and Geelong have started to embrace anti-betting messages and sponsorship. Hawthorn has interests in two venues - Vegas at Waverley Gardens and West Waters at Caroline Springs. What is the future of those two arrangements?
Irrespective of what I might think, we have two longstanding commercial arrangements that can't be broken. I commend what Geelong is doing and we're doing something similar with our community stuff. We're starting a family fund to help, perhaps not people with gambling problems, but people in the Hawthorn community who need some financial assistance. So while we can't get out of our arrangements, we can help people in the community and that's what we'll do.
 
Free agency is going to change the football landscape. Are you satisfied that the club is well placed to deal with the changes?
Contractually, we have staggered our players so that they're not coming out of contract all at the same time, but I personally don't think there will be a whole lot of movement. But what we have seen over the last few years is that Hawthorn has become a destination club. Jack Gunston, David Hale, Shaun Burgoyne and David Hale are examples of this. Even Amos Frank fits in because Andrew McLeod, a former champion Adelaide player, recommended that he go to Hawthorn. If we look after our physical environment, the culture and the education, we will remain a destination club. And that applies to coaches and staff as well as players. For us to get (assistant coach) Leon Cameron two years ago was an outstanding achievement and to hang on to him after he nearly got the Bulldogs job last year was great for us. The feedback we get is that Hawthorn is a club that people want to come to.
 
The conspiracy theorists would say that Hawthorn's home game draw at the MCG - which includes five non-Victorian teams - is payback for having a president at the time who was an agitator. So how do you get along with the AFL?
I get on well, so I don't think there is an issue there. There was no retribution in the draw, but it is not great from a corporate point of view and we will deal with it. From a footy point of view it's pretty good and if we win those home games then our footy people will be happy and so will our supporters.
 
What are your hopes and expectations for the year?
What I've told our blokes is that it will be bloody hard. We've got ground to make up on the top two sides from last year. We haven't beaten Geelong since the 2008 Grand Final and we haven't beaten Collingwood much lately either, so we have some work to do. Everyone is talking us up and saying we're the team to beat, but I don't see it. Internally, it's a long way from where we think we are and we have to get a lot better. I'd like to win the premiership and I think we're capable of winning it, but we have a lot of hard work to do.
 
This is the last year of the Five Two 50 business plan, and if you win the flag, Hawthorn will have achieved all it set out to do. What's in the next business plan?
It's being worked on at the moment and there are no timelines on delivering it, but it will be about thinking big. The small stuff is set in place and is mainly items we can't control. The big things we can control. We're about being competitive on the field and turning out quality individuals. I'm very confident that we'll be competitive for the next five to six years because of the structures we have put in place and the outstanding coaching group we have. We have a very stable environment here and we don't have any agitators. So it's about getting everyone on the bus, being inclusive, play your role and see what you can get done.
 
You can follow Ashley Browne on Twitter @afl_hashbrowne