The Tasmanian AFL taskforce has ticked a major box off its checklist with 50,000 pledges to the United We Stand campaign.
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Encouraging those with a passion for Tasmania and its football future to become non-financial members of the cause to get the AFL's attention, taskforce leader Brett Godfrey was happy with the result but described the "lovely milestone" as "just one step on a long journey."
"Hopefully it will send a number of messages to the AFL about the positives of a Tasmanian team and this is just one of the boxes that needs to be ticked off it but I don't want our outcome to hang off this," the co-founder of Virgin said.
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"It was to show unity. It was to discredit those who continue to say the state is hopelessly divided and that's been successful.
"You guys [the Tasmanian media] are a perfect example that for the first time in history, the three mastheads came together to support one cause being one football team. Not a North, not a South, but a state team.
"For me that's the credit and the satisfaction of it being achieved."
Admitting that all 50,000 pledges aren't centralised within Tasmania, Godfrey said several mainlanders had still contacted him as state ex-pats and was surprised at how quickly the milestone had been reached - little more than one month since the August 30 launch date.
"We've got another couple of months before we report [to the AFL] and we are still on track for that at the end of the year and we are working diligently to put the case together so that's the objective," Godfrey said.
"We spent the first three months talking, listening, consulting, testing and that's all been done now."
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