NWFA: Rosebery-Toorak pushing on despite monster defeats

A Tasmanian football club in the state’s northwest has vowed to push on after suffering a 431-point defeat on the weekend. Here’s how they’re fighting on.

Rosebery-Toorak Hawks senior team prepares for a game at Rosebery Park Oval in April. Picture Brendan Muskett

Hawks legend Duncan Murfet has thrown the doors open to people and players willing to get on-board and help the Rosebery-Toorak Football Club fight its way through tough times in the North West Football Association this season.

The Hawks suffered a heavy defeat in their round three game against Sheffield on Saturday, when the Robins kicked 69.17 (431) to 0.0 (0) with Aaron Mcnab bagging 21 goals.

The result came after 272 and 254 point losses in the opening fortnight of the season with the Hawks kicking just one goal across three games.

Murfet is the Hawks’ games record holder, but he is not exactly sure how many games he has played except to say “400 and something”.

“There were a couple of years where we were reasonably competitive and then last year and this year have been a struggle again,” he said.

“On Saturday we had about eight or nine players under the age of 18 and when you consider they are based in Rosebery, there’s not much to do if you’re not playing footy.”

Rosebery-Toorak would welcome players and volunteers to help it through the season.

“If someone is interested in coming along they can contact me (0438 731 223) and we would like to have them,” Murfet said.

NWFA president Todd Auton said it was sad to see such a proud club fighting for its place in the competition.

“They are struggling big time,” Auton said.

“I spoke to them at the start of the year and they said we’d rather have somewhere for our kids to have a game of football than have nothing.

“It’s hard backing that up every week.”

Rosebery-Toorak Hawks regroup at quarter-time. Picture Brendan Muskett

Rosebery-Toorak has found it difficult to retain players with a shift in population and the transient nature of the mining industry.

“It’s a battle to get players in their area,” Auton said.

“The mining is starting to take off again but a lot of them now are working 12-hour shifts, seven days a week.

“When they finish their seven days they take off, and whereas before they used to live there, they don’t live there, most of the people. They just pack up and go back out for seven days and come back in.

“That makes it hard – I really don’t know what they’re going to do, they are struggling, the poor buggers.”

Rosebery-Toorak was form in 1987 with the merging of Rosebery and Toorak.

“Two clubs fought out some epic battles back in the WTFA,” Murfet said.

“We had changing fortunes in the mining towns and populations dropped, so they merged.

“We won a couple of premierships and played in a couple of other grand finals.

“We will be working on finding more players and putting up a more competitive performance.”