Only just, but it's not the first time that Hawthorn has scraped into the season's big dance since the controversial decision was made to stick the state's logo on the Hawks' guernsey.

Any commercial naming rights sponsor would be rapt if the team it backed made a grand final four times in seven years - winning at least two of them with a third on the cards.

And you don't have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a consultant to know that the arrangement has been good news for Tasmania. It beggars belief that the knockers still bleat about it.

Regular commuters know that you have to book much longer in advance to be able to get a seat back into Launceston on the days before a Hawks game at York Park or to get out the day after.

Regular diners know that you have little or no chance of getting a restaurant booking.

And it is often difficult to find hotel rooms for a conference or another event even in the week after a match here.

That's because the sponsorship delivers what it is designed to achieve - visitors and dollars to Tasmania in and around the games.

It's also why the South of the state wants more games in Hobart.

Yes - for sure there is an element of matching what the North has just for the sake of doing so.

But these days passion, whether misguided or not, won't get a big commercial deal across the line - it has to make sense beyond that.

When the Hawthorn Footy Club runs out on to the MCG yet again on that all important last Saturday in September with Tasmania emblazoned on each players' left breast, every dollar that the state has invested will be rewarded over and over again.

It's true that not too many of the 100,000 people in the crowd will actually be able to read it unless they know what they are looking for but the value is there delivered to millions of people in more effective ways - in the close-ups on the television broadcast, now also in high-definition and beamed around the world, in the printed and internet based photography and in every jersey that a fan buys as a result.

So then it becomes not just a question of the number of fans who are inspired to come to Tasmania to watch the Hawks play a game - but also about those who get the notion to come here at any time at all as a result of the sponsorship prompt.

Think for a moment of an alternative investment.

Let's say we had sponsored Melbourne or Richmond or even Carlton.

They haven't been in a grand final for yonks.

Tasmania by chance or otherwise hit the jackpot with Hawthorn in terms of maximising exposure at the right time.

Sure the Hawks have done all right out of the deal as well but they have also been pretty good partners.

Let's celebrate the opportunity won yet again rather than find reasons to knock it.