Devils looking to build on rough start with coexistence the key

It was a tough start for the Devils, but AFL Tasmania believes many key lessons has been learned for next season.

Tasmanian AFL draftees Mitch O'Neill, 18 who was picked by West Coast and Matt McGuinness, 19 who was picked by North Melbourne. Picture: ZAK SIMMONDS

BRINGING the Devils together more often is one of the key goals for the 2020 season as AFL Tasmania looks to implement valuable lessons learned on a tough initiation.

The decentralised population of Tasmania has long been a hindrance to state teams across all codes and sports.

In their first season in the elite under-18 competition, the NAB League, the Devils lost their eight games to finish second last on the ladder, had no players taken in the national draft and lost their coach, Adrian Fletcher, post season.

However, the Devils did land two playing in the rookie draft — Mitch O’Neill (West Coast) and Matt McGuinness (North Melbourne) — and will start their second year under new coach former North Melbourne football manager Cameron Joyce.

AFL Tasmania's Trisha Squires says the Devils were more disjointed at the start of the campaign. Picture: SAM ROSEWARNE.

AFL Tasmania chief executive Trisha Squires said despite the Devils having all their wins in the first half of the season, she said she felt the team was more disjointed at the start of the campaign.

“We’ve already talked about we need to get the team together more often,” Squires said.

“We are looking at Campbell Town as one of the venues that we will try and get everyone together at more often.

“That is important because obviously when it comes to game day we need the guys to know each other and the first half of the season you could sense the guys didn’t know each other that well and it is something we are really going to focus on over the next couple of months.”

She said having no selections in the national draft was disappointing but not completely unexpected.

“Obviously we would have liked to see Mitch go in the first or second night but the great thing is he is on a list and that is all the matters, whether you are a rookie or not, so that was really important,” she said.

“We always knew that this year there probably wasn’t going to be a large number of Tasmanians go in the draft so we are really happy with the outcome but we know we have got a lot of work to do and a lot of people in the pipeline for next year.”