Tassie women relish second rep chance after first-up defeat

Tasmania’s women’s vice captain believes more rep footy will give players a better chance to develop as they look to bounce back from defeat in Queensland at Launceston next month.

Tasmanian midfielder Perri King busts clear with the ball against Queensland at Bond University. Picture Aaron Black AFLQ Media.

Tasmania vice-captain Olivia Smith believes the increase in representative football “has to happen” as the side looks to bounce back from Saturday’s 58-point defeat in Queensland.

After they were beaten by the northerners at North Hobart Oval last year, Tasmania didn’t have a chance to rectify areas of their game with another match.

This year they’ll get a second crack on July 20 against a combined Sydney-Canberra side at UTAS Stadium, and Smith said more games is vital for the team’s development given players hail from three different regions.

The system also has one eye on the introduction of a Tasmania team into the VFLW, and Wynyard player Smith said more chances to wear The Map were vital to be ready.

“Any rep footy is a great opportunity, it will make our brand of football a lot better if we play more at the higher standard,” Smith said.

“You don’t necessarily get enough of that football in your local league, so that’s the next step to push yourself to be a better player.

“It’s extremely important, you only become a better player when you play people at your level or even higher.

“In my opinion being able to play against people at that high and competitive level, it just benefits yourself and your teammates. It has to happen more often.”

Smith said they’ll embrace the chance to address their game for the clash at Launceston, after being more competitive on the Gold Coast in the second half after trailing by 41 points at halftime.

“Considering we had four trainings together and we’re all from different regions, we did work together relatively well,” she said.

“We were hitting up targets and we had a lot of structure. We took a lot of positives from it even though we didn’t win.

“We didn’t drop our heads, in the second half. We almost won a quarter so you could tell we kept our heads up, even though at halftime we were (well down).

“The main reason why all of us enjoy playing as a team and working together is you do get to know each other really well. You form such good relationships with players from different parts of Tassie, it’s great to get to know all the other girls.”

Smith said their contest work would be a major focus before the Sydney-Canberra clash.

“We knew going into it that Queensland were going to be tall and quite aggressive,” she said.

“They almost played in waves and surged together so we need to almost imitate that in a way, that tough brand of football attacking the footy first.

“I thought we were a bit secondary to the football, (it’s about) having that confidence we can go in there and get it out to our teammates.”