Launceston Silverdome snubbed by Australian netball fixtures

The Launceston stadium had previously recorded a sell-out crowd for Collingwood's final Super Netball match in June and successfully staged the Diamonds' only previous match in Tasmania, a Constellation Cup clash between the world's top-two nations, back in 2016.

Amid speculation of more top-level matches coming to Tasmania, The Examiner's match reporter wrote: "A return of international netball would be a fitting reward for the much-maligned venue and acknowledgement of the state's netball hotbed."

But less than three weeks later, Tasmania's two fixtures in the upcoming series between Australia and South Africa were both awarded to the Derwent Entertainment Centre.

A great chance to acknowledge the strength of Tasmanian netball fell foul of the state's Hobart-centric mentality.

The newly-crowned world champions' three-match series will begin at the Cairns Convention Centre on Wednesday, October 25, before concluding at the DEC the following Sunday (4pm) and Tuesday (7.30pm).

As Tasmania's Minister for Stadia and Events Nic Street was quoted in the original Netball Australia press release announcing the series, The Examiner asked him whether the Silverdome had been considered for one of the Test matches.

He said it had, but was already booked by Basketball Tasmania for their regional primary school championships.

"We always need to balance elite and community sport and given the pre-existing booking, it would have been unconscionable to prevent young Tasmanians from playing their championships," he said.

True enough, the Grade 5-6 tournament is indeed taking place at the Silverdome across the weekend of October 28-29.

But it's not on the following Tuesday.

And there is no reason why the second of the two Tasmanian fixtures could not have been played there.

If transport is suggested as an excuse, the teams are travelling 3664 kilometres between the first two matches so is another 200 really that much of an inconvenience?

A two-day turnaround would present a few logistical headaches for the Silverdome staff but just two days after that Constellation Cup clash back in 2016 the venue also successfully hosted an IBO Super Middleweight World Title fight featuring home-town champ Daniel Geale, so they would doubtless be up for the challenge.

A cynic would suggest that the Tasmanian government facilitated so much money being spent on the DEC in order to secure the JackJumpers in the NBL that use of the venue has to be maximised to justify the outlay.

Start times of 4pm on Sunday and 7.30pm on Tuesday in Hobart effectively deny the chance to attend for parents of school-age children in Launceston let alone those from the North-West. Leaving the DEC at 9pm on a Sunday and arriving home in Burnie about 1am isn't conducive to being fully alert at school eight hours later.

So this would appear to be another sadly missed opportunity to share elite sport around the state.

If only Tasmania's sporting hierarchy could hit the target as accurately as TNL MVP and Hawks co-captain Ash Mawer.

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