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North Melbourne deal hurts Tasmania's AFL bid

Expert
20th June, 2011
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2987 Reads
Hawthorn's Travis Tuck in action during the AFL Round 03 match between the North Melbourne Kangaroos and the Hawthorn Hawks at the Telstra Dome. Slattery Images

Hawthorn's Travis Tuck in action during the AFL Round 03 match between the North Melbourne Kangaroos and the Hawthorn Hawks at the Telstra Dome. Slattery Images

When North Melbourne secured a deal to play two home games a year in Hobart earlier this month, its chairman James Brayshaw proclaimed: “This is a great day for the North Melbourne Football Club, the city of Hobart and the AFL.” And he was right.

It was a great day for the North Melbourne Football Club. They got their $1 million a year deal.

It was a great day for the city of Hobart. They got two games of footy annually in their own backyard.

It was a great day for the AFL. They extended even further the number of games in Tasmania.

What got glossed over, however, was that it probably wasn’t such a great day for Tasmania’s bid to get its own AFL team.

This is because North’s deal seems to have exposed – and perhaps even exacerbated – the problem of the single biggest stumbling block behind Tassie getting its own team, the divide between the North of the state (where Launceston is) and the South (where Hobart is).

As Tim Lane noted in The Age on the weekend, “The old wounds of regional division have been reopened.” It was evident last year when the idea of games in Hobart first game up and key figures in Launceston labelled it a “betrayal” of the vision of former premier Jim Bacon and were “astounded” the idea was even being considered.

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Now that the deal’s done, the state will have one team representing the north (Hawthorn) and another team in the south (North Melbourne). Chances are, the AFL will fixture these teams to play each other too.

Sure, it will be great that Tasmanians will get the chance to demonstrate they are willing to support six games a year in the state (plus any pre-season games). It’s important to show the AFL this is possible.

It’s also important to silence those who doubt there are enough people to support a team. Tasmania’s population dwarfs that of Geelong and compares well with the Gold Coast and 50 per cent of Adelaide, where Port Adelaide have a market share below half.

But the problem is, those attendance figures look slightly less impressive if they are achieved by having the north and south represented by two different teams. And those population numbers likewise don’t look so good if only half of those people would actually get behind a Tassie team should it eventuate.

Tasmania is a football heartland. On paper, the numbers suggest they deserve a team.

In reality, though, the AFL have every right to question whether if the state was given a team, that the whole state would be behind it.

Eventually, someone – or something – will have to break this perception and show that unity is possible. That it is actually possible for Tasmanians to get behind one team.

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But for the foreseeable future (with Hawthorn starting a five-year deal next year and North a three-year deal) the status quo will remain and, most worryingly, with two different teams dividing the state, it could actually get worse.

Sure, most parties would be happy right now. North, Hobart and the AFL would be happy. Launceston and Hawthorn would be content with the continuation of their successful partnership. The Tasmanian government would be pleased with more AFL games in the state.

A lot of people would be happy with themselves right now.

Unfortunately, though, to make everyone happy, something had to give, and that was Tasmania’s chances of landing an AFL team. The bid needed a perception-breaker, instead it got a perception-reinforcer.

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