Tasmania Devils aiming to share close relationship with local leagues
Tasmania Devils CEO Brendon Gale has flagged sharing a close relationship with local footy leagues and they couldn’t be happier. Here’s what we know.
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The Tasmania Devils plan to build some of the foundations of their AFL club on the state’s newly-revamped regional football competitions and Southern Football League president David O’Byrne says that is music to his ears.
The SFL boss has met several times with Devils new CEO Brendon Gale, who at his “public unveiling” as Tasmania Football Club’s leader in Penguin last week, revealed plans to work hand-in-hand with the regionals.
“The success of the Tasmania Devils football club at the peak of the elite end is going to depend so much on the health and vitality of community football and regional football in general, and the elite pathway,” he said.
“We have got no interest in building a football club and having a narrow, single-minded focus and growing at the expense of regional competitions.”
For O’Byrne, it was the reassurance he needed that community football around the state would be embraced by the Devils.
“He recognises the importance of the football ecosystem,” O’Byrne said.
“He is a club person first, he understands the importance of football clubs and community clubs in the lives of individuals and teams and communities.
“That is exactly the kind of language and message that the president of a regional football league wants to hear, and he is right.
“Without a good football system _ community football, juniors, community clubs, Premier League clubs _ it does make it very hard to produce the best.”
Grass roots football is the driving force of the game.
“More than 90 per cent of people who get involved in football don’t do it at the elite level, they do it in the community,” O’Byrne said.
“So he is dead right and that is music to our ears.”
Tasmania Football Club chairman Grant O’Bryne had already flagged the Devils’ desire to embrace grass roots footy.
“One of the first things he did when he was made chairman was to come and meet with the SFL executive and presidents,” O’Byrne said.
“It was a very good signal from the football club that they understand what we are doing for footy in Tassie.”
The new-look two-tier SFL competition kicks off on April 5 with a round of grudge matches between former TSL teams Lauderdale and Clarence, and North Hobart and Kingborough, and the first instalment of what is sure to be a new northern suburbs rivalry between Glenorchy and Brighton, promoted to join the five former State League clubs.
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