The Tasmanian State League’s woes have been well documented in the past two months, however, it is not all hunky-dory at a regional level either.
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With season 2018 just two weeks away, Northern Tasmanian Football Association and Tasmanian Football Council president Paul Reynolds said the structure, equalisation, player payments, pathways and women’s football management were issues high on his agenda.
The NTFA is the sole senior football competition in Northern Tasmania, overseeing about 1800 players from 20 clubs across two divisions, and Reynolds said it is naive to think regional and community leagues can stand still while the world around them changes.
During Reynolds’ nine-month tenure, the NTFA has admitted East Coast and Bridport, lost Prospect Hawks with several other clubs finding the going tough and rejected a licence application from Winnaleah.
He said a move to a regional under-18s competition, NTFA promotion-relegation and the association adding women’s football to its responsibilities were all on the horizon for 2019.
CHALLENGES
The main one is the direction we want to take and how we’re going to help clubs meet their obligations and needs to compete, but we also need to regulate to ensure the playing field is even.
AFL Tasmania and the TFC have announced that they’re looking at a salary cap and how that’s going to occur, because we want all clubs to have the same opportunities and people to understand that throwing tens of thousands of dollars out as a short-term fix doesn’t always lead to long-term success.
And everyone needs to be on board as it goes hand-in-hand with our player points system.
Our latest sponsorship deal with Lion signed just last week gives us confidence moving forward and where we want to be.
It’s worth $600,000-plus over three years, made up of different components, which makes us the envy of many competitions around the state.
We have to demonstrate how we’re going to commit that money over a period of time and it’s not just throwing buckets of money at different things.
It’s about what will make the competition and clubs sustainable. We’re the only senior league in Northern Tasmania and with that comes great responsibility, and that responsibility is opportunistic.
We need a clear pathway and that is why we’re in the process of developing a strategic plan.
NTFA STRUCTURE
The demographics of our competition require us to look at a regional under-18s competition and that means unshackling the under-18s from division 1. At the moment we deprive under-18s from playing in a regional competition and that’s poor as we’re not doing the service we’ve committed to do.
It’ll also perhaps give us an opportunity to look at promotion and relegation for division 1 and division 2, which would make the competition stronger.
No one wants to be relegated but it gives clubs and players something to play for, should they not be in the finals race towards the end of the year.
And for the teams that want to be promoted it’s going to be another incentive for them to do as well as they can.
I’d like to see that happen in 2019 but it will be a decision for the NTFA Council.
A division 3 competition has never been on our radar but there may be an appetite for it… a single-team club competition.
It may also not be the same number of rounds but for clubs that haven’t got a lot of numbers or can’t commit the time that it takes to be part of division 1 or division 2. If there’s one, then we need to be responsible to those needs.
TSL RELATIONS
The NTFA must retain a strong relationship with our two State League clubs as it is important for the region.
It’s our mandate to supply a good and viable competition for Northern Tasmania so if we can’t work with North Launceston and Launceston, then I’m not sure we are fulfilling our obligation completely.
We will never stand in the way of the development of players and that is vitally important.
ADMIN HUBS
Administration hubs have been on the AFL’s radar for some time, and if they can provide services that we can avail ourselves to it would certainly be a benefit.
If they took care of things like our registration, insurance and changes in AFL policy needs it’s a real positive. It’s being trialed in Hobart and I’ll be keen to see how that goes.
UMPIRES
We’ve committed $5000 to the establishment of an umpires academy in the North and AFL Tasmania has just expanded the role by having a North umpire recruitment officer.
Without umpires we don’t have a game.
FOOTY COUNCIL
The TFC has been given the responsibility by the AFL of looking after and administering community football.
There are two streams in Tasmania – the TSL and junior pathways and community football – and there seems to have been clashing at a peak, which I’m not sure that needs to happen.
There needs to be more streamlining and we need to provide certainty for all leagues with consistent policy across the board.
WOMEN'S GAME
We’ll take over management of the TWL North competition from next year from AFL Tasmania. We’ll most likely run a separate league because it will stretch our resources too much if we try and melt it into the existing NTFA roster.
It would be great to see every club have a women’s team but the growth will plateau out… and I don’t think every club will be able to sustain one.
It’s essential that more planning is done into grounds and facilities for women’s football.
Corey Martin
Having started at The Examiner as a cadet in 2009, I have held various positions telling the stories of Northern Tasmanians in sport and news. I was appointed deputy editor in 2019 and became editor in September 2021.
Having started at The Examiner as a cadet in 2009, I have held various positions telling the stories of Northern Tasmanians in sport and news. I was appointed deputy editor in 2019 and became editor in September 2021.
