{"id":163997,"date":"2025-09-23T17:38:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T17:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/163997\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T17:38:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T17:38:18","slug":"mackay-named-2025-development-coach-of-the-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/163997\/","title":{"rendered":"Mackay named 2025 Development Coach of the Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__summary\">\n                Hawthorn Assistant Coach David Mackay has been recognised for his efforts by the AFL Coaches Association.\n            <\/p>\n<p>Hawthorn Assistant Coach &#8211; Structure &amp; Opposition, David Mackay has been named the 2025 AFL Coaches Association Development Coach of the Year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Mackay initially joined Box Hill at the end of 2021 to lead the Hawks Academy and serve as a VFL Assistant Coach.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>He then crossed to Hawthorn&#8217;s AFLW coaching staff as its Midfield Coach from 2022 to 2023, while also playing a role within the club&#8217;s AFL team.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>After splitting his duties across both programs, Mackay transitioned to a full-time AFL Development Coach in 2024 before moving into his current position as Assistant Coach &#8211; Structure &amp; Opposition.<\/p>\n<p>As part of his role, Mackay also mentors a number of emerging Hawthorn midfielders, impressing with his leadership, communication and expertise.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Before his coaching journey, Mackay notched up 248 games for Adelaide across 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>He retired at the end of the 2021 season with the ninth-most games in the Crows&#8217; history.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hawthorn Assistant Coach David Mackay has been recognised for his efforts by the AFL Coaches Association. Hawthorn Assistant&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-163997","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}