No. Not if history is any guide.
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The simple, but almost certainly accurate, response to The Examiner's front-page question arising from Friday's release of the AFL Taskforce report into the viability of a Tasmanian team in the "national" competition.
That question, placed over a picture of Premier Peter Gutwein looking uncannily like a battle-weary Gary Ablett Junior as he delivered a handball to Errol Stewart, was: "Will the AFL come to the party?"
Also in the frame is Brett Godfrey.
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He may have been looking elsewhere as if resigned to the move being thwarted by divine intervention from a higher power, but the taskforce chairman was to deliver a message with all the trademark pinpoint accuracy of an Ablett goal assist.
Perhaps for the first time, it suggested a weakness in a defensive line the AFL has relied upon for as long as anybody can remember.
"In this review nobody can say that Tasmania doesn't have a team because of Tasmania, which is kind of what the messaging has been throughout history," Godfrey said.
"This does debunk all of that. It's now if Tasmania doesn't get a team it's because others north of Bass Strait have decided that's the case."
When it comes to hitting a nail on the head, not even chirpy larrikin celebrity carpenter Scott Cam could have done so more tidily.
The parochialism myth has long been a welcome distraction for AFL House - conveniently ignoring the fact that Tasmania's regional papers have been singing a unified tune and a campaign entitled United We Stand swiftly gathered 64,000 supporters - nearly double the estimated required membership to support an AFL club.
Demonstrating supreme mastery of footballing analogy, Godfrey said this "furphy" had been kicked into touch and the ball was now firmly in the AFL's hands.
Tasmania should not hold its breath while waiting for a pass.
At the same press conference, Gutwein ventured further forward than any of his predecessors.
While Paul Lennon, David Bartlett, Lara Giddings and Will Hodgman feared offending the all-powerful AFL gods, the newly-installed Premier said the taskforce modelling proved a Tasmanian team could be more beneficial than deals with Hawthorn and North Melbourne as the best case scenario for 11 games in the state of $7.3 million is actually less than the $8 million Tasmania pays for seven games.
These clubs, and the AFL in general, have been suckling on the Tasmanian teet for so long they appear almost oblivious to their reliance upon it.
Just last week, North Melbourne issued a media release trumpeting its 11th profit in the past 12 years.
It talked up the contribution of revenue and membership to a net profit of $47,000, but strangely made no mention of the multi-million-dollar contribution of Tasmanian tax-payers.
Hawthorn's annual financial statements make the same oversight while the club's response to Friday's developments was a terse acknowledgement concluding with the trusty disclaimer: "The club will make no further comment on this issue at this stage."
Despite the taskforce recommending Tasmania reconsider both club sponsorships upon their contract maturities in 2021, Gutwein indicated the government would move to renew both deals until at least 2025.
Music to the AFL's ears.
On current figures, that's another $32 million heading into the accounts of one of the most financially successful sporting organisations in Australia.
The taskforce's business plan estimated $45 million would be required to get a Tasmanian team off the ground, to be paid for by the AFL plus state and federal governments.
With the state government's best-case scenario being $7.3 million, and the federal equivalent having to be seen to treat all states equally, that leaves the AFL faced with having to cut its umbilical link to an annual transplant of $8 million before making a donation several times that figure.
So will the AFL come to the party?
No. Not if history is any guide.
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