This time next week we will be digesting the AFL’s best-practice model for football’s future in Tasmania beyond this September.
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And to be frank, expectations aren’t high for what the Gillon McLachlan-led steering committee is about to spit out before July.
Since March, the six-person think tank has been reviewing talent pathways for young footballers
What we know so far – by all reports – is that the committee’s respect and support for the State League is virtually non-existent and the AFL is setting up the state’s top-tier competition to fail.
After former AFL Tasmania boss-turned AFL House’s game development head Rob Auld guaranteed the TSL’s survival until the existing licence agreement ends in 2023 at a meeting with the seven presidents on Tuesday, The Examiner revealed a list of bewildering demands that would only weaken the status quo.
Clubs will have to meet, with less financial and resource support, a set of key performance indicators around junior development, management and community zone engagement – which they have been asked to devise – to receive their annual $100,000 AFL grant.
North Launceston president Thane Brady said the following was presented in an “arrogant” and “take it or leave it” fashion:
- TSL to be renamed Tasmanian Premier League with clubs to be referred to as “community clubs”.
- All seven clubs will be deemed to have failed to meet the requirements and all grant money suspended, should one club falter.
- If KPIs are not met to “AFL Tasmania’s satisfaction”, then notice of the league’s termination can be given no later than September 30 of any year.
- Slash funding by $7000 to $100,000 a year with the $1000 bus subsidy to be scrapped.
- Videoing of games to stop, killing off the match review panel and make redundant AFL Tasmania support staff aside from one full-time position.
- Remove player zones so talent can transfer between clubs without a fee.
Hardly moves to strengthen the TSL – a true cog in the state’s talent pathway that has served 2018 draft prospects Tarryn Thomas and Chayce Jones well.
It’s an about-face considering for the past decade administrators have been hell-bent on defending the TSL and the need for a high-performance league in Tasmania.
Auld rightly said in July last year that the flagship competition was a “critical component of football in Tasmania” and it would be a “flawed assumption” to presume that the state’s best young talent would remain in the state and play in a regional competition once their Mariners duties were completed if the State League was disbanded.
Now he is on a committee with his handpicked replacement Trisha Squires, McLachlan, Chris Fagan, Brendon Bolton, Nick Riewoldt and AFL state league manager Simon Laughton looking to push the TSL closer to the cliff.
Since its reincarnation in 2009, the TSL has been continuously manipulated by self-interested administrators resulting in many controversies as a result of poor decision-making – South Launceston, Western Storm, Hobart City Demons and the exits of Burnie and Devonport to name a few.
On the surface, Tasmanian football appeared to be on the mend following the secretive Garlick Report and Alud’s appointment. Changes to straighten up pathways and increase participation were made.
But the fact is competent leadership at AFL Tasmania has been absent for a generation – much to the state’s detriment.
The AFL will fund three regional full-time development managers from the TSL’s $1.3 million budget.
Mathew Armstong has been handed the Southern job with the North’s equivalent on the steering committee’s June 30 recommendations deadline.
The AFL appears more interested in redistributing funds to achieve its recommended pathway rather than investing more into the required TSL, coaching and community football.
The NTFA is working through an overdue and necessary restructure, which seeks to address a growing shortage of junior players and will see the association split into three divisions.
These are a one-team division 2, division 1 and a six-team premier league which could be expanded to include Launceston and North Launceston should the TSL be axed. Premier clubs will have to field teams in the NTJFA or enter an alignment with a junior club and run an Auskick program.
It is a required step with recent history of clubs folding and struggling to field teams. That restructure would only complement a required high-performance league – the TSL.
Every other football state has a level above community football, but in Tasmania for some reason people would rather whack the TSL than appreciate the role it plays in developing footballers, umpires and coaches in a professional environment.
Without it, there would be a massive blackhole in the pathway and a quantum leap for any player looking to test themselves in comps like the VFL.
Plans signed off by the AFL commission for a full-time Mariners program, a possible Tasmanian VFL side or affiliation and our own AFL team will also be revealed by McLachlan.
McLachlan said in March that what Tasmanians need “is a clear vision and a structure that they own”.
Doubts hang as to whether the steering committee’s plans will deliver.