Tasmanian football codes remain in a league of their own for upcoming seasons

The choice between state or regional leagues is an issue almost as old and deep-rooted as the North-South rivalry, and about as easy to solve.

Footy is preparing for the last season for the Tasmanian State League by mapping out the regional landscape that will follow.

In contrast, soccer is persisting with male and female statewide leagues, but it's fair to say that's progressing as smoothly and efficiently as the Midland Highway upgrades.

Much like that ongoing saga, there are bumps in the road of both football projects.

AFL Tasmania has proposed three regional competitions from 2025 with a Northern Premier League headlined by traditional State League powerhouses Launceston and the Northern Bombers who have already seen players migrating either to the mainland in search of higher-level competition or the NTFA in readiness for the new model.

If nothing else, at least that will return North-West footy to the same level as its fellow regions, this having not been the case since Burnie and Devonport opted out of the State League.

The rejig is all tied in with the alleged introduction of Tasmanian AFL and AFLW teams and will see the State League disbanded at the end of 2024 and a Tassie VFL team re-introduced in 2025.

NTFA president Damien Rhind summed up the sport's general feeling by admitting that the future was both "daunting" and "exciting".

AFL Tasmania announced on Friday that Brighton Football Club would be the sixth team to compete in the Southern Premier League from 2025, joining the five Southern TSL clubs Clarence, Glenorchy, Kingborough, Lauderdale and North Hobart.

Meanwhile soccer's state body - confusingly called Football Tasmania - thought it had everything sorted for 2024 when it confirmed eight-team men's and women's competitions in October.

However, this settled landscape swiftly developed a major faultline when Clarence pulled out of the Women's Super League. This left Launceston United, Devonport, Taroona, Kingborough, South Hobart and newcomers Riverside and Glenorchy facing either a weekly bye or a last-minute arrival, with assorted Facebook sites swiftly encouraging Launceston City or Ulverstone to take the statewide plunge.

Just six weeks after declaring he was "thrilled" by the WSL's expansion, newly-installed Football Tasmania chief executive Tony Pignata was "disappointed" by its subsequent shrinking.

Further muddying Tasmania's pristine clear waters is the possibility that South Hobart are seeking to join the proposed National Second Tier underlying the A-League.

How successful they are remains to be seen but Football Australia's eagerness to expand the national competition beyond traditional powerhouse states NSW and Victoria was ably demonstrated by the announcement of the eight founding clubs featuring five from NSW and three from Victoria.

At such times of turmoil, social media can be relied upon for balanced independent reaction, none of which is influenced by personal agendas.

Fortunately, Tasmanian soccer has two excellent Facebook pages devoted to ongoing developments and both offered up timely reality checks.

On his site Tassie Football Central, Matthew Rhodes reflected on the beginnings of the current statewide competition - then called the Victory League - featuring TV advertising, marquee players and major sponsors suggesting: "Football in Tasmania needs some overdue TLC."

And Tanner Coad's equally-informative Take That Game Back site added the apparent loss of NPL TV to the mire, suggesting the game will be poorly served without it.

Among respondents' suggestions for the best way forward was a return to regional women's competitions concluding with a North v South challenge for the respective champions combined with rep games against other states.

This, of course, was precisely what used to happen with footy, which is also enjoying something of a resurgence in rep games following last season's popular victory over Queensland at North Hobart Oval.

It is also interesting to note that while both sporting bodies are based in Hobart, their state leagues have lately been dominated by clubs from north of Oatlands - Launceston sides having won nine of the last 11 TSL premierships and Devonport six of the last eight NPL Tasmania titles. However, best to let that one through to Tim Paine since the parochial card is traditionally about as popular at a Tasmanian table as an opinionated Victorian.

Only time will tell which is the best direction to head for either football code, although history would seem to suggest that whichever route is taken, it is likely to be reconsidered and possibly reversed somewhere along the journey anyway.