Chasing whispers, half-promises and possibilities: Tasmania’s footy future

ANALYSIS: CAN you dangle a carrot when there is no guarantee of a carrot at the end?

PITCH: AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan outlines the findings of the AFL steering committee into the future of football in Tasmania. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

CAN you dangle a carrot when there is no guarantee of a carrot at the end?

That’s the question Tasmania’s football community is being asked by the AFL steering committee after the findings were released by AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan.

It is the perfect structure for Tasmanian football — if there was a guaranteed AFL licence bid at the end.

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McLachlan will not make that promise, but he wants all of Tasmania to unite behind a state VFL club for the possibility we might be able to bid for a team in the future.

Even the VFL licence is only provisional at this stage, and not locked in, and only partially funded.

The AFL is asking Tasmania to again grasp at an illusion

There are aspects to like about the new structure.

The additional $1.4 million is more than welcome.

The inclusion of full-time boys and girls TAC Cup teams and an extended pathway from under-12 up, all under the same branding, is sound policy. Any assistance to community football volunteers is a big win.

But the way to truly unite Tasmanians is to provide us with a common goal – our own AFL team – we can all support, not the possibility of one.

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To take a glass-half-full look at the future: Tasmanians are fully united behind the new structure, participation rates lift, the under-18s perform well and produce regular draft selections and the VFL side is competitive, regularly playing finals. Our foundations are perfectly laid, our commitment is obvious. Are we guaranteed a crack at our own AFL team? No.

The glass-half-empty approach: Tasmanians don’t support the structure. The VFL team is uncompetitive with no love. The AFL uses this as evidence that the state cannot sustain its own club in the big league and any chance of a bid is again indefinitely delayed.

But either way, we don’t end up with our own team.

Is it time for the Government to put all its chips on the table by threatening to not extend the Hawthorn or North Melbourne contracts beyond 2021 without our AFL pathway?

The VFL challenge is going to be big enough as it is, playing against virtual AFL reserves teams made up mostly of professional players, and both the VFL and TAC Cup approaches have been tried, and failed, before.

But can you imagine the passion, goodwill and enthusiasm if, say, the AFL had said in five years time after the creation of this new structure, Tasmania can bid for its own licence?

The VFL team would have supporters, members and sponsors clambering to be a foundation members of Team Tasmania.

Instead the AFL is asking Tasmania to again grasp at an illusion.