The struggling club, that only rebranded itself a month ago after two years under its Western Storm moniker, held a crisis meeting on Tuesday night.

Hawks president Michelle Strickland was keeping her cards close to her chest on the club’s future, which was discussed behind closed doors at Aurora Stadium.

“We have reached a decision of our position,” Strickland said.

“We’ll be putting that to AFL Tasmania and all the other clubs [on Wednesday].

“Until we have the opportunity to do that, I am not going to be making any further comment.”

Strickland said the final announcement would be in AFL Tasmania’s hands should they accept the Hawks’ proposal for affiliation in the 2016 TSL season. 

One possibility is believed to involve fielding a “development” team in 2016 with the club having lost more than a dozen senior players.

TSL general manager Shaun Young declined to comment on the structure of the competition.

“AFL Tasmania will not be making any statement until after we have met with the TSL clubs [Wednesday] afternoon to discuss Prospect Hawks’ position and what that means for the TSL going forward,” Young said.

Rival Northern clubs were mixed on the Hawks fielding anything short of full affiliation.

Launceston president Malcolm Atkins said his club would want to “see a plan that goes past one year” before it agreed to any proposal from Prospect.

Atkins floated the idea of a development side with an eye to the future.

“Initially our thoughts were if they just turned up with just a development league team, we’d be OK with it as long as it is a start of a plan to build the club back up,” Atkins said.

“If it’s just a one-year proposition to keep them up, I think the writing’s on the wall and should just pack up and go home.”

Atkins said his club’s stance was to maintain a 10-team statewide competition with three clubs based in Launceston to ensure crowds kept turning out for TSL football.

“We’ve had our best crowds against North Launceston because we have built up a good rivalry over many years and we’d like to see that third team stay just on that basis,” he said.

North Launceston president Thane Brady said the ongoing crisis from the Storm’s flagging fortunes this season – from its name change to Prospect, to new coach John Tootell walking out on the club within a month of signing – had created uncertainty on rival TSL clubs.

“This is a matter between Prospect and the AFL,” Brady said.

“If Prospect cannot field or cannot comply with the provisions contained in their licence, it’s a matter for the AFL.

“Certainly to consult with the clubs, and that’s what we’d be expecting, but the creation of Prospect was a decision that the AFL principally made through the recommendation of Scott Wade to the board, totally against the advice of our club and others, that were completely ignored, that this will be a disaster and it has been.

“So now it’s up to the AFL to roll out the road map and try and fix it.”