Revealed: Tasmania’s greatest sporting controversies since 2000
Sport in Tasmania has had its triumphs and tribulations over the years, as well as its fair share of controversies including shocking on field acts of violence and horror deaths. These are the state’s most controversial since 2000.
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Sport in Tasmania has had its triumphs and tribulations over the years, as well as its fair share of controversies.
We recalled some of the most memorable controversies of the 21st century.
Footbrawl – Southern Football League Grand Final 2005
Let’s start with the commentators, who said: “That’s one of the weakest things I’ve seen on a football field.”
In the third quarter of the 2005 SFL reserves grand final, two of the big boys of the game between Lindisfarne and Channel started pushing and punching.
It developed into a 10-player punch-on – but no-one could have predicted what happened next.
On the periphery a Channel player, who had not thrown a punch in the incident, was hit from behind by a Lindisfarne player coming off a 10m run-up to deliver the unexpected blow.
That was fuel for the all-in brawl that ensued.
It was mayhem as furious Channel players tried to get the Lindisfarne perpetrator as his teammates tried to stop them.
There were 10 reports from three minutes of mayhem in that grand final, the premiership won by Lindisfarne 16.13 (109) to 7.14 (56).
Macquarie Point Stadium
Never in the history of Tasmania has a piece of infrastructure divided the state like Macquarie Point Stadium – not even the Franklin Dam issue back in the early 1980s.
The 23,000-seat roofed stadium was conceived as the home of Tasmania’s AFL team.
Its multipurpose design would ensure it could host international soccer, rugby and cricket, as well as concerts, Dark MOFO experiences and cultural events undercover.
Mac1 generated a split in the community, division in parliament, a no-confidence motion in Premier Jeremy Rockliff, an unwanted election, and a rush of would-be politicians trying to get elected on a No Stadium stance.
Some say it will cost $1b, some say more, some say it will create thousands of jobs and generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the state, some say it won’t.
Either way, it has become a bitter, dividing, political hot potato.
Tim Paine stands down as Aussie captain
Tim Paine quit as Australian Test cricket captain on November 19, 2021.
It was over an explicit “private text exchange” with a female co-worker, which included a picture of his middle stump, the bombshell announcement coming just weeks before an Ashes series was due to start against England.
In tears while reading a resignation statement in Hobart, Paine said he had been cleared by a Cricket Australia Integrity Unit investigation but his actions did not meet the standards of an Australian cricket captain.
“Nearly four years ago, I was involved in a text exchange with a then-colleague,” Paine said.
“I recently became aware that this private text exchange was going to become public. On reflection, my actions in 2017 do not meet the standard of an Australian cricket captain, or the wider community.
“I’m deeply sorry for the hurt and pain that I have caused to my wife, my family, and to the other party. I’m sorry for any damage that this does to the reputation of our sport.”
Paine still played in that Ashes series.
In 2022, Renee Ferguson, the woman at the centre of the scandal, wanted Cricket Tasmania to pay her $1m in compensation and apologise over allegations she was sexually harassed by Paine and Cricket Tasmania staff when she worked as a receptionist between 2015 and 2017. The case was dismissed.
In 2023, Ferguson was sentenced to eight months of home detention for stealing $5600 from Cricket Tasmania.
SICILY SPEAKS OUT
Hawthorn captain James Sicily caused a storm and copped furious backlash with his ill-advised assessment of Tasmania.
Here’s what he said when asked if AFL players would be reluctant to move to Tassie to play football for the Devils.
“I think so, particularly as a young guy, because there’s not much happening down there, it could be difficult,” Sicily said.
“I couldn’t imagine myself living there. It would be hard.”
Sicily’s comments caused an uproar among many AFL fans supportive of a Tasmanian team.
That included former Tasmanian AFL player Mitch Robinson and Tassie’s Stawell Gift-winning sprinter Jacob Despard. Both came out swinging.
The Hawthorn star was also called out for his so-called Tassie-bashing, because of the Tasmanian government’s longstanding, multimillion-dollar deal with the Hawks, who play four games a season in Launceston.
“I’m sure sponsors love hearing that, considering Tassie pumps $13.5 million into a club that’s currently on struggle street,” Robinson said.
Despard added: “Absolutely ridiculous comment considering how much money the state pumps into the Hawthorn Football Club.”
Sicily apologised.
That looks oddly familiar
The Tasmania Devils AFL club was launched in March last year to great fanfare, revealing their name, colours and a flash, modern, even unique new logo.
Fast-forward to this year, and the Perth Wildcats unveiled their rebranding with a new logo that looked remarkably similar to that of the Devils.
Perth’s logo received mixed reaction from the NBL community, including claims that “it’s a rip off” of the AFL’s Tasmania Devil, and initiated an uproar and “copycat” claims online.
The Wildcats hired independent transformation partner Hum to lead the rebrand. The new logo was created by Michael Irwin, who has worked with major sporting teams.
In an online poll that asked “Do you think the Wildcats logo is similar to the Tasmania Devils?” 86 per cent of respondents voted yes.
We think so, too.
SIREN-GATE
The AFL siren controversy, forever to be known as Siren gate, was the notorious conclusion to St Kilda’s AFL match against Fremantle at York Park in round five in 2006.
When the final siren sounded, Fremantle led by a point.
Fans heard it, the coaches heard it, but the umpires did not hear the siren and play continued for about another 25 seconds.
That was long enough for Saints player Steven Baker to kick a point to tie the match.
The combination of a quiet sound system and a loud crowd created mass confusion and chaos.
Fremantle coach Chris Connolly stormed onto the field.
“The siren had gone. I’ve got a countdown clock in the coach’s box, I turn to the coaches and say well done, good job,” Connolly said.
“I turn back around and the game’s still going.”
Things only got more confusing when Baker was awarded a free kick, again, 25 seconds after the siren had sounded, and again, he kicked a point to tie the score, with Connolly now on the field having a verbal confrontation with St Kilda star Lenny Hayes.
Four days later, the AFL ruled that the match should have ended when the first siren sounded.
St Kilda was stripped of its last behind, resulting in the victory and the full four premiership points being awarded to Fremantle.
It was only the second time in VFL/AFL history that the score and result of a game was changed on protest.
PUNTER’S GOODBYE
Ricky Ponting’s last Test match was against South Africa, played from November 30 to December 3, 2012 at the WACA in Perth.
Ponting was dismissed for eight runs in his final innings.
The next Test was at Bellerive Oval, which was the perfect way to send-off a revered Tasmanian sportsman and much-loved Australian batsman – fourth among cricket’s all-time run-scorers with 27,483, behind Tendulkar, Sangakkara and Kohli.
“Punter” was dropped after the Perth Test and not given a farewell home Test match in Hobart.
Instead of wearing his Baggy Green, Ponting’s final appearance at the ground where he started his illustrious career, was being driven around his home ground on the back of a ute.
Targa Tasmania stops its engines
One of Tasmania’s biggest events, Targa Tasmania went into a forced recess for two years after the deaths of four competitors in the 2021 and 2022 events.
In 2021, Queensland driver Shane Navin died when he crashed his Mazda RX7 on a West Coast stage, his car leaving the road ending upside down in a creek where he drown trapped in the driver’s seat.
The next day, local driver Leigh Mundy and his Queensland navigator Dennis Neagle died when their Porsche hit a tree on the Cygnet stage south of Hobart.
Targa officials made changes to their event for the following year, and lectured the field at length on safety in the 2022 pre-event competitor briefing.
The death of Queensland driver Tony Seymour, who crashed his Lotus Exige and died on day two, stopped the 2022 multimillion road show in its tracks and was followed by an exhaustive investigation by the Coroner.
The event has undergone sweeping changes, including a limit on the number of competitors and speed limits on cars, as it resumes in November.
Creswell’s shock walkout
He’s inductee No. 128 in the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame, for his 244-game, 208-goal career for Sydney Swans (1992-2003), not for his one-and-a-half-year tenure as coach of the original Tasmania Devils VFL team.
On June 4, 2008, Cresswell held his usual midweek presser at Bellerive Oval, got up, said goodbye, and walked out.
That was the last anyone in Tasmanian football saw him in the state for years.
Cresswell was under pressure in his personal relationships, and had been hiding a gambling problem.
The superstar Tassie footballer left Devils fans bewildered when he disappeared – turned out he went straight to the airport and flew to London.
A few years later “Cressa” was convicted of fraud and jailed.
He pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud in the Maroochydore District Court and was sentenced to three years in jail suspended after 10 months.
Cresswell had used false documents and a fake name to borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars in Queensland in 2005 and 2006 to repay gambling debts.
Give me back that trophy
It’s every blue water sailor’s dream to be on the yacht that wins the Sydney to Hobart yacht race on overall handicap.
In 2021, Hobart sailor Troy Grafton achieved that dream as a key crewman on the Sydney racer Celestial – or so he thought.
A protest from a fellow-competitor Ichi Ban over Celestial’s failure to respond to a radio call, as per the race’s strict safety regulations, penalised it by enough time to allow second-placed Ichi Ban to take the win.
It did not take Grafton long to get his wish — Celestial came back and won the race “again” a year later.
JackJumpers targeted
Tasmania’s much-loved NBL championship-winning basketball team is a melting pot of talent and ethnicity.
As is all too common in sport, they are not immune to keyboard warriors.
After some unsavoury comments went online in 2024, coach Scott Roth came out strongly in his players’ defence.
“We have been attacked brutally through social media to the point where it is ugly,” Roth said.
“We have a lot of distraught players and family members, wives and spouses and children.
“We have a player whose wife is pregnant and they [people online] wished for a miscarriage.”
While authorities took up the case, the basketball community wrapped its arms around the Jackies.
“There has been overwhelming support…the love from Tasmania is just crazy,” Roth said.
“The love in this building [MyState Bank Arena] – you feel it in this state.”
Wild Oats sank in the boardroom
In 2017, Wild Oats was first across the finish line to win the Sydney to Hobart yacht race a record ninth time, or so they thought.
Wild Oats was penalised an hour after facing a protest from rival supermaxi Comanche for causing a near collision as the fleet raced out of Sydney Harbour on Boxing Day.
The crew of Wild Oats knew they were in trouble and could have exonerated the yacht by doing a 720 turn – in layman’s terms two complete circles as a self-imposed penalty.
They chose not to, and paid the price, handing the line honours win to Comanche.
“Everyone’s a genius in hindsight,” said Wild Oats skipper Mark Richards. “We made our decisions and have to live with them.”
JackJumpers withdraw Indigenous jersey
The Tasmania JackJumpers were forced to withdraw their 2023 NBL Indigenous singlets after concerns were raised about the artwork used.
Aboriginal Tasmanian man and former TSL player Rulla Kelly-Mansell said the use of dot art on the jersey misrepresented palawa-pakana art techniques.
He said using the dot art was plagiarising a technique from another Aboriginal culture.
“The club is committed to uniting the community and as such, the NBL and the Tasmania JackJumpers have decided the club will not wear the jersey this weekend and it will not be available for sale,” the club said in the statement.
Football shut down
The best football competition in Tasmania was killed off at the end of the 2024 State League season to make way for the Devils to enter the VFL.
Only, the VFL team did not happen.
Despite calls of “one more year”, the TSL was terminated but there was no VFL program in place.
Instead, the state got both men’s and women’s academy teams for a limited series of games to fill the gap year until the VFL teams start up next season. Confirmation is still pending.
AFL racial abuse at Launceston
Nine lifetime bans for racial abuse were handed out during the 2023 season, and sadly, one of them was for an incident at UTAS Stadium in Launceston.
Some people in the crowd at Launceston games are giving us a bad reputation.
In 2001, Adelaide Crows legend Andrew McLeod copped an ugly mouthful from a spectator in Launceston. The abuse was so memorable it got a mention in McLeod’s biography Black Crow, citing it as the worst racial abuse he had copped from football fans in his 340-game career.
McLeod reported the incident to Adelaide Crows chief executive and chairman of the day Bill Sanders.
“The guy was hanging over the fence never letting up on Andrew, calling him a black c--- and more,” Sanders said.
In 2011, Tasmania’s Anti-Discrimination commissioner got involved when Hawthorn megastar Lance Franklin was racially abused playing against West Coast in Launceston.
It came on top of Melbourne’s indigenous players claiming they were taunted with sickening language during an NAB Challenge game in March the same year.
In 2014, North Melbourne’s Majak Daw was racially abused by a spectator during a match against Hawthorn in Launceston, the male spectator caught and evicted from the ground.
Maybe one day we’ll learn.
Can you smell something burning?
Tasmania’s most famous Lamborghini burned to a charred shell in a Targa event in 2014 and despite flames licking at the back of his neck, Jason White continued racing his Italian dream machine until the wheels literally fell off.
White and navigator, his uncle John, were unharmed after their $600,000 competition-spec Lamborghini Gallardo Super Trofeo caught fire in the Targa Wrest Point rally in the state’s South.
The car burst into flames at 190km/h about 3km from the finish of the 22km Tahune stage, that’s when White saw flames shooting from the rear-mounted V10 engine.
“When your rear view mirrors glow orange, it’s a bad sign,” Jason said.
“There was just a massive fireball out the back.
“We’ve had the car on fire once before, at Mt Buller, which was a reasonable size fire. But that was a candle compared to this one.”
White hoped to make it to the end of the stage where a fire truck would be waiting.
“I drove it until the chassis rails melted off it and that’s what stopped us from rolling to the point where the fire truck was,” he said.
”The suspension mounts didn’t have anything to hold on to anymore because the chassis melted away and the wheels basically fell off.”
The car was rebuilt in Lamborghini Gallardo Squadra Corse spec and won Targa Tasmania the following year.
F1 star injured in his own event
In November 2008, Australian Formula 1 star Mark Webber was injured while competing in his own sports challenge on Saturday.
Webber, who was driving for Red Bull at the time, was injured when he collided with a car during the Mark Webber Pure Tasmania Challenge, a 250km event using mountain bikes, kayaks and trekking, when the accident happened.
He underwent immediate surgery with surgeons putting a pin in his broken right leg. No charges were laid by police.
He’s not the winner
Cricket Tasmania Premier League officials were left a little red faced when they incorrectly awarded the Emerson Rodwell Medal.
Current Hobart Hurricanes hero Mitch Owen was named the winner when he shouldn’t have been after being found guilty of breaching the competition’s code of behaviour.
Officials said an “administrative oversight” was made when handing down the award.
North Hobart pair Jack White and Yousaf Iqbal were then declared joint winners.
Soccer player banned
A local soccer player was banned in 2019 for two games and fined $5000 after betting on games involving his own team.
The player, who was never named, played in the competition under the top league, NPL Tasmania, and only bet on his side winning, ruling out match-fixing allegations.
They also bet on NPL Tasmania and Victoria games.
A further two-game suspensions and $5000 fine was suspended.
Don’t post the team sheet
Hobart Hurricanes wicketkeeper Emily Smith was handed a 12-month ban (with nine months suspended) when for posting a video of the WBBL batting line-up before a game against the Sydney Thunder in Burnie in November 2019.
Smith posted a video to Instagram before the game, which was eventually abandoned, with the then 24-year-old found to have breached Cricket Australia’s anti-corruption code.
A Hobart Mercury report at the time said “the Hurricanes manager failed to take all the players’ phones on arrival at Burnie’s West Park, and with heavy rain falling that eventually saw the match abandoned, Smith absent-mindedly posted the video of the batting line-up”.
The Hurricanes were fined $10,000, with $5000 suspended, over the incident.
Huge bans in Old Scholars grand final
A total of 14 weeks suspensions were handed down to two players by AFL Tasmania’s match review officer after the Old Scholars Football Association grand final between OHA and St Virgil’s in 2021.
Ships player Ray Hill was given four matches for an incident that left Saints playing-coach Jaye Bowden concussed and unable to continue after halftime.
That was doubled to eight matches when the MRO applied its 100 per cent loading for offences in a grand final, and subsequently reduced to six with an early guilty plea.
Saints player Trad Duggan copped three matches for rough conduct against Hill in the third quarter, which left the OHA player concussed and unable to continue playing.
Duggan’s punishment was doubled to six matches with the 100 per cent grand final loading, and reduced to four matches with an early guilty plea.
Three spectators injured in Targa
Two inquiries were launched into a 2006 Targa crash which left three Hobart men in hospital.
A competitor swept off a turn on Hobart’s Domain ploughing into spectators leaving the three people in a serious condition.
Race organisers launched their own inquiry as did the Confederation of Australian Motor Sports.
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