The Lefroy Medallist for Tasmania’s best in Saturday’s representative loss to the NEAFL said the opportunity to add regularly to his two appearances could be better served by true state games.

The NEAFL is a combined New South Wales, ACT, Queensland and Northern Territory side from the feeder league for four AFL clubs.

“It would be a good experience to more exposure to more games and more people watching games,” he said.

“The exposure for young fellas coming through, even mature-age, to show what they’ve got would be great.”

The elusive 21-year-old believed TSL players would be committed to a carnival series now with the AFL burying state-of-origin football.

Tasmania has played an annual representative fixture since the revival of the TSL in 2009, but only twice facing Queensland (2009, 2010) and once to Victoria (2012) and Western Australia (2016) against a state-only side from its eight matches.

“We had a few training runs the last month and guys really put their hand up to play for Tassie,” he said.

“It means a massive honour for every single one of those guys at training.

“You could tell how they went about it, in their eyes, listening to instructions – everyone wanted to play.

“More state games would just be excellent.”

Lockhart said pulling on the Map was a “massive privilege for everyone”.

But despite the nods of good judges to be awarded the best-on-ground for Tasmania, he assessed his own harshly.

“It took me a bit to get into the game,” he said.

“I probably went back to how I probably play at North Launnie – my role is to get back and across behind the footy to try and get loose and create offence from half back,”

“I probably wish I used the ball a little bit better, as I wasn’t overly clean with the football.

“But once I started to get into the game, I felt like I was pretty comfortable and could contribute in some way.”

Tasmania turned the tables around from its shocker last year against Western Australia in a massive 134-point loss.

Lockhart, who debuted for Tasmania interstate at Bassendean Oval, felt that the TSL was able to play the game on their terms among a rival NEAFL side that featured up to 10 former AFL-listed players.

“I think this year we tried to make the footy as congested as we could – contested footy, the Tassie way,” he said after the 17-point loss at Bellerive.

“They were a bit like WA, wanting to get on the outside.

“They probably have a little bit more class being in a better league.

“The NEAFL’s strengths are using their speed and skills, so we just tried to bottle up inside, and it nearly worked.”