“My style is much more of a consensus-led style. And in terms of the board and my interactions with them,there’s been times over the last five years when Jeff’s been away and in the governance sense,I’ve had the carriage of the club ... if you asked around,you would see that I’m very independently minded and this is not a Jeff proxy.”

Nankivell said Gowers,Merlino and supporter group “Hawks for Change” - who are backing Gowers as president - had not put forward “any particular changes I’m aware of” and called Merlino’s comments on culture issues at the club “very unfortunate”.

“I suppose the one that keeps being fed back to me at the moment isJames Merlino’s comments about cultural issues festering at the football club. And they’re very unfortunate comments to make,and it had,internally,a very negative reaction amongst our management,our staff and our football people.

“Sam Mitchell and the management team have been working incredibly hard,in particular over the last 12 months,around at our football club,in establishing a culture that we can be proud of.”

Merlino toldThe Age recently:“We are not the family club if you’ve got past players and their families who want nothing to do with the Hawthorn Football Club.”

Criticisms of how Nankivell had won the board’s nomination - a process that involved a six-member panel that included Gowers and which Nankivell chaired - were fiercely defended by club legend Don Scott and the club’s greatest financial backer Geoff Harris.

“We write as members of the Hawthorn Football Club Nominations Committee in response to some public comments by Hawks for Change representatives Andy Gowers and James Merlino,who are in pursuit of election to the Hawthorn board. These comments were flawed,failed and grossly inaccurate,” said Scott and Harris,in a message that was sent to members.

“It is important that we set the record straight as we both feel as though we are also being criticised.

“In particular,we have concern about the suggestion that the process that saw the board unanimously support vice-president Peter Nankivell as Jeff Kennett’s successor was not good practice. In fact,it was the very best of good governance.” Scott and Harris backed Nankivell to continue the board’s plans.

In Nankivell’s presidency pitch,he cited the need to implement three “very bold” decisions made by the Hawks recently - the appointment of Mitchell to succeed Alastair Clarkson,progressing Hawthorn’s new “Kennedy Community Centre” base in Dingley and the decision to exit poker machines and set up a future fund.

Nankivell backed the entry of Tasmania as the 19th team and said of Hawthorn’s trading period exodus of three senior players:“I think the mindset of all the decisions we’re making at the HFC at the moment,in a football sense,a men’s program sense,are who’s going to be part of our premiership success.”