'It's a joke': TSL clubs break silence on glaring NTFA launch absence

Launceston and the Northern Bombers were noticeably absent from last week's launch of a six-team NTFA competition which both clubs' presidents say will be to the detriment of Northern football.

"It's a joke throughout our community," North's Thane Brady said.

"It feels like an arranged marriage devoid of love, happiness and the excitement of future possibilities."

His Launceston counterpart Scott Stephens added: "It's a very backward way of going about things. Unfortunately all the focus is on the elite (AFL) team and local football has been left behind, especially in the North."

The absence of the perennial TSL premiership contenders from Friday's launch raised plenty of eyebrows with AFL Tasmania and the NTFA side-stepping questions as to why.

Stephens told The Examiner he was notified too late while Brady said his club "couldn't find anyone with genuine excitement or interest" to attend.

"We didn't apply to join the league. AFL Tasmania are obligated to find us an alternative home," Brady said.

"The NTFA could have rejected the AFL Tas approach that would have prevented the chaos that will affect every club in the NTFA in one way or another.

"In one decisive move by the AFL grasping the opportunity to slip one by under the cloak of Tasmania picking up its own team, the power shift to centralise football in Hobart is now a reality.

"It's as misguided as opening a huge amount of primary and secondary schools but closing the Northern universities."

Both presidents felt the new NTFA Premier League, also featuring Deloraine, Longford, Scottsdale and South Launceston from 2025, would be a significant drop in standard from the State League.

Stephens said the Blues were planning a club meeting to decide their future beyond this season.

"Our position on the new league is still up in the air," he said. "We need more information to present to the members of our club.

"Our current stance is that we are not satisfied with the direction of the new league and we are not satisfied AFL Tas have made every effort to establish a strong and sustainable competition for the North of the state. We have great respect for the NTFA clubs who went through the selection process and our stance is not a reflection on them as opposition.

"We want to see some leadership shown from head office in providing our aspiring and talented kids a strong and sustainable competition. Currently we are not fixing the problem of our talented kids leaving the state for better opportunities."

Brady described the club selections for the league as being like throwing darts at a whiteboard "over a few refreshments courtesy of the naming rights sponsor".

"Regardless of how it was determined, the premier league is a formula for failure. It's inevitable our club will fall back in standard which is a real shame for the players, coaches and all involved.

"We have pride in our performance and our brand, but you are only as good as the competition you face week-in, week-out.

"This proposed competition offers nothing to many of our current players who seek the challenge of a completely different game style that is based on fitness and skill."

The Bombers president compared the new league to a similar make-up in the 1980s which he said lost relevance and led to senior players electing to travel south for higher competition.

He said increased AFL investment was a search for additional talent for their competition, not for the community, while a proposed player salary cap "will break some clubs within three years".

"No genuine attempt has been made to restructure the junior road to senior football missing out on the key fundamental improvement required to remedy the player shortage and payment of ridiculous sign-on fees to average players.

"In future, without a TSL, whilst on the talent academy journey, Northern children of 12-18 years will enjoy pampering from the AFL, however, the 90 per cent not taken in the draft will be young adult Northern outcasts with only a community competition on offer after a decade of sacrifice and hard work.

"It's not reasonable to believe this group of players will be content to give up their aspirations. If not drafted, the majority will move to higher level competitions - Hobart or mainland."

Stephens, who said he only learned of the league launch the previous day by email, also felt the level of funding for Tasmania's three regions was not up to standard.

Immediately after Friday's league launch, The Examiner asked AFL Tasmania head Damian Gill why Launceston and North had not been represented.

AFL Tasmania responded with a comment from its community football manager Tom Barwick to say: "Today was a celebration of the four successful NTFA clubs joining the Premier League next year.

"We are excited for Longford, South Launceston, Deloraine, and Scottsdale to join Launceston and North Launceston in a brand-new competition in a new era for Tasmanian footy."

NTFA president Damien Rhind was also asked at the launch why the TSL clubs were not present.

"I guess I probably take a bit of a leaf from the media here, you guys seemed to think that they were pretty much in the competition already," he said.

"An article in The Examiner had North Launnie and Launnie there already and four spaces. We're about celebrating the NTFA clubs moving into the Premier League today."

In an AFL Tasmania press release on December 8 last year, Rhind predicted the new league would lift the standard of football in the North adding: "We are also fortunate to have the two most successful teams of the modern State League era involved in this process and look forward to further discussions with Launceston, North Launceston and AFL Tasmania."