Crash: Tasmania’s JackJumpers have elbowed their way into the conversation of Australian sport’s greatest expansion teams

The great sporting debate: Where do the Tasmania JackJumpers rank among Australia’s best expansion teams? Their tale is unlikely to ever be recreated, writes ROBERT CRADDOCK.

The Tasmanian JackJumpers are the most enchanting story in Australian sport but if you call them our greatest expansion team you better put your flak jacket on.

This masthead’s basketball guru Matt Logue declared on Sunday night the NBL title winning team from Tasmania was “arguably‘’ the best Australian expansion team if you take it on a three season sample size.

The Tasmania JackJumpers have become arguably Australian sport’s most successful expansion club over the first three seasons of existence.
Now NBL boss Larry Kestelman plans to take the popular JackJumpers’ brand to the global stage.
READ: @codebballauhttps://t.co/5fQz8psqHepic.twitter.com/Jl6n0NW9UH

— Matt Logue (@mattlogue7) March 31, 2024

The poor fellow has since copped more fire than a beach-stricken extra in a D-Day war movie, with Twitter fans outraged at the suggestion.

The cause? Who else? The Melbourne Storm.

“League fans came at me from everywhere with their pitchforks shouting how the Melbourne Storm won in their second season,‘’ Logue said.

“But the JackJumpers played in a grand final before they won and the Storm didn’t so just on the first three seasons the JackJumpers actually had the better record.‘’

Fair point. For my money, four-time NRL champions the Storm, are still the expansion kings for their astonishing ability to shine year after year in a region where they had no previous footprint.

Then Melbourne captain Glenn Lazarus lifts NRL trophy aloft after the first of the Storm’s grand final wins in 1999. Picture: Gregg Porteous.

But the fact that anyone can even elbow their way into a discussion says everything about the JackJumpers’ effort to win a title in their third year.

It’s almost poetic that the two clubs are linked together by a spiritual thread.

JackJumpers coach Scott Roth made it his business to meet with Storm coach Craig Bellamy where he fell in love with the idea of sending his players out to do manual work before the start of the season.

Roth sent his men to work with team sponsors Andrew Smith Apples in the orchard and restaurant to give them a feel for the people they were going to play for, what it meant to work from 8am to 5pm and generally eat humble pie.

There’s also a strong “us against the world‘’ whiff about both teams, Tasmania defending their island and Melbourne always deeply suspicious about what Sydney thinks of them and we won’t even bother delving into their desperate craving to beat Brisbane.

So for me it’s the Storm gold, the JackJumpers silver and the bronze to - of all clubs - a Storm co-owned netball team, the Sunshine Coast Lightning, national champions in their first two seasons in 2017 and 2018.

Much like the JackJumpers it was not so much where the Lightning finished but where they came from that hoists them on to the podium.

Laura Scherian and Laura Langman celebrate Sunshine Coast Lightning’s win in the 2017 Super Netball Grand Final. Picture: AAP Image/Glenn Hunt

A year before they started they were nothing more than a logo. In their early weeks of training, staff were scrambling to find biros and balls and coach Noeline Taurua was heard asking “does anyone have a whistle?‘’

They won their first title even before they had an office fridge. To win two in a row was an absurdly good achievement and worthy of a place on the podium ahead of many notable candidates including - a drum roll please for ...

WESTERN SYDNEY WANDERERS: Fabulous effort to make the A-League grand final in their first season in 2012-13 after coach Tony Popovic was given just six months to assemble a team.

Front page of the Sunday Herald Sun, September 27, 1992. Picture: Craig Borrow

WEST COAST EAGLES: It may seem strange to brand them a great expansion club given they currently would struggle to beat an egg but only Hawthorn have more than the Eagles four premierships since they were admitted to the AFL in 1982.

THE DOLPHINS: An underrated story. Given minimal time to prepare for their opening NRL season in 2023 and somehow won nine matches despite not starting training until January. In early contract wars they got more knock backs than a cold caller trying to sell you cheap electricity but cobbled together a team which, in their second season, is leading the ladder.

THE BRONCOS: Joined the NRL in 1988 and won back to back titles in 1992-93. It was a notable effort but Queensland had always been dripping in league talent. The bigger surprise would have been had they not won a premiership in relatively quick time.

THE SWANS: Deserve mention not for short term brilliance but eventual long term consistency after a gruelling start. Became the Swans in 1982 and had many years of abject despair before premierships in 2005 and 2012.

Originally published as Crash: Tasmania’s JackJumpers have elbowed their way into the conversation of Australian sport’s greatest expansion teams