Chief executive Rob Auld said the planned changes arose out of talks over the past few months looking at the best overall competition model for the State League, inclusive of the DL.

“We want to make sure that whatever comes from that fits with one of our strategic pillars of sport of choice – and that as boys, girls, parents look at our competition they can see a really clear pathway if they want to pursue the game and shoot for the stars at the highest level,” Auld said.

“The highest level within the state – best talent, premier comp which is our catch-cry for the TSL or the highest level could be on the national stage. And just as importantly, I want participants involved in our game at community footy level to see an equally clear pathway.”

Auld said club presidents believed the current DL model failed to deliver those outcomes.

“When you looked at statistics across the clubs of players’ ages, you would have to argue that it was a development league in name only and so what is the right model which has a sort of laboratory of the future in it?”

Auld said clubs had agreed that the DL competition would have age restrictions placed in 2018 and 2019 which he considered to be a significant step forward and would be re-branded with a name that promoted the talent pathway image.

“This underage competition will have some exemptions for long-term injuries or players that breach the age bracket – we are not going to be ridiculously tight on it but we are going to police it,” Auld said.

“That’s one of the areas that the clubs agreed to and they wanted us to work with them on it over a sensible time-frame.

“As part of that we looked at building the critical mass underneath that and we are going to create the concept of zone talent academies for kids we want to bring in across three different age brackets 13, 15 and 17s, to give them a taste of what a more concentrated, advanced program could look like. Maybe one night a week over a six to eight week block and we want to name the zone academies after a player that has come from that zone that is readily identifiable.

“We will help the clubs set them up and our two talent managers Adam Sanders and Mathew Armstrong will be heavily involved in the North and South respectively.

“The person who heads up the academies would be for want of a better term the junior talent scout who watches the games and selects candidates suitable.”

The issue of Burnie and Devonport fielding teams in the under-age competition had also been discussed. Auld said the two North-West clubs would work with AFL Tasmania “and do all they could to be involved in the competition.”

“We’ve got to work with Andrew Richardson and the NWFL and they quite rightly hold some concerns about how that would look and work,” he said.

“There is an appetite for more constituents to try to make that work but we have to work through that in a more considered way next year.”

Auld said the aim was to have the two clubs back in the underage competition by 2018.

“The meeting with club presidents on Tuesday felt to me like I was in a very different room to when I first met them. We’ve matured so much as a group and the discussions were robust and constructive and the views were declared with a view to improving footy as opposed to looking for blame. I was really buoyed by it and pleased with how the meeting went.

“We got commitment to work through these zone talent academies, commitment in 2018-19 to have a model that was true to talent and had an under-age component and we got commitment to work with Burnie and Devonport and the NWFL to work through that.”