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Mahony will begin her new role in late October, but is \u201ctrying to stay for as long as I can to get the team through\u201d the 2026 AFLW season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s huge. I wasn\u2019t expecting it,\u201d Mahony told foxfooty.com.au on Thursday of her new role.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey (Chelsea) approached me and I definitely wasn\u2019t expecting to move anywhere. I love the Swans and I really enjoy my role here, but the role over at Chelsea just sparked my interest.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be able to impact a program \u2013 and particularly a women\u2019s sports program \u2013 on the biggest stage and test myself and contribute to a world-class program over there, it was huge.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m leaving probably a little bit before I\u2019m ready, but it just felt like I couldn\u2019t pass up on an opportunity at one of the biggest clubs in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just before the Swans\u2019 2026 pre-season began, Mahony and her husband were flown business class to England to meet Chelsea\u2019s officials and check out the club\u2019s facilities in a whirlwind three-day trip.<\/p>\n
Chloe Molloy of the Swans celebrates a goal. Picture: Darrian Traynor\/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
She then had to make \u201ca pretty quick decision\u201d and ultimately opted to relocate her family \u2013 including two-year-old twins \u2013 to the northern hemisphere.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started from a position where I\u2019m really happy at the Swans and love my role and I wasn\u2019t planning on moving anywhere, plus we\u2019ve got a young family,\u201d Mahony said. \u201cBut once I started to hear more about the role, what they were trying to achieve, the scale of the competition over there and where it\u2019s gone, it\u2019s kind of an opportunity of a lifetime.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the end, it seemed like an opportunity that if I didn\u2019t take it \u2013 as both a family and as a career \u2013 I\u2019d regret it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have a crack, move over to the other side of the world and see how we go \u2026 I\u2019ve been approached and it probably isn\u2019t where I ever thought I\u2019d end up, but these opportunities often come at a time where you don\u2019t expect it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mahony is nearing five years with the Swans after becoming the club\u2019s inaugural AFLW appointment in 2021.<\/p>\n
A seasoned leader in the high-performance sporting landscape, Mahony is also a qualified sports physiotherapist, having joined the Swans from the NSW Institute of Sport, where she was Head of Performance Health.<\/p>\n
The Swans after their first AFLW win in 2023. Picture: Jason McCawley\/Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
Mahony\u2019s extensive experience spans the Australian women\u2019s cricket team, the Australian Open and the Women\u2019s Tennis Association.<\/p>\n
Last October, Mahony joined the AFLW Competition Committee, which at the time mulled over Tasmanian AFLW list rules, league data and analysis, and the growth of the competition. <\/p>\n
Mahony said building the Swans\u2019 AFLW program \u201chas been an absolute highlight of my career\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really proud of what we\u2019ve done,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had about 10 weeks to build the team and then a 10-week pre-season into that first season (Season 7, 2022) and we knew it was going to be really tough when the season was brought forward. We didn\u2019t anticipate that and it just truncated our timeline so much.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I guess what I\u2019m proud of is it\u2019s been a truly whole-of-club effort. Before I was appointed, there was a steering committee that had really decided how to go about building a team and what expertise they wanted in the building. Then we really welcomed the team with open arms. There\u2019s obviously a new high-performance facility, which was custom built to have Academy, the AFL and the AFLW teams all integrated in one space.<\/p>\n
The 2025 Swans-Giants derby attracted 7171 fans to Henson Park. Picture: Matt King\/AFL Photos\/via Getty ImagesSource: Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess what I was trying to build was a truly high-performance program. AFLW, like cricket and other sports before it, had gone from community to semi-professional to professional \u2013 and AFLW is still on that journey of building crowds and building momentum. But one thing I\u2019ve always been unapologetic about is building high standards around both the staff and the playing group and giving our athletes the best opportunity to succeed \u2013 and doing that in a way that supports every single player that comes in our building, no matter their gender.\u201d<\/p>\n
Under Mahony, the Swans have developed a strong match-day experience and, subsequently, attracted crowds that are the envy of the competition.<\/p>\n
In their four games at Henson Park last season, the Swans averaged an attendance of 5324. That included a crowd of 7171 for the late September derby against the Giants.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe matches are awesome. It\u2019s such a good atmosphere. Henson Park is a good stadium and North Sydney was fantastic as well,\u201d Mahony said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what I mean about a whole-of-club effort \u2013 our marketing team and our commercial team and their ability to build interest and really tell the story of these players and how we\u2019ve built the team.<\/p>\n
Randall announces AFLW retirement | 01:02<\/p>\n
\u201cThat first season was really tough, but to turn up that second season, play a really good brand of footy, get the players, have the time to get the standard of fitness and skill up \u2013 and it\u2019s still going, the team\u2019s building \u2026 I guess that\u2019s the hardest thing about leaving is I still don\u2019t think we\u2019re quite finished.\u201d<\/p>\n
Swans chief executive Matthew Pavlich said Mahony\u2019s \u201cunwavering commitment\u201d to the club\u2019s players and staff is \u201ca defining feature of her leadership\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was pivotal in building our AFLW program and did so with sheer hard work and determination under tight time constraints ahead of our first season,\u201d Pavlich said in a club statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cSince then, Kate has established a high-performance environment, building the strong foundations that will support the program\u2019s success for years to come. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a significant opportunity with one of the world\u2019s leading sporting organisations, so while Kate will be greatly missed, we are incredibly proud of what she has achieved and thrilled for her and her family as they embark on this next chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outgoing Sydney AFLW executive general manager Kate Mahony admits she\u2019s leaving the Swans \u201ca little bit before I\u2019m…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818258,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-818257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818257","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=818257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}