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Can Tasmania United fill the void left by the recently defunct North Queensland Fury? Yes, and they should be playing top flight in 2012.
The bid is a bold one.
Not only is Tasmania AFL heartland, it has a problem inherent in its geography. The north-south divide has been touted as the Achilles heel for any Tasmanian professional team, and uniting the two halves of the island is essential for any team’s success on the Apple Isle.
Can they do it? I believe they can. Absolutely they can.
TasmaniaUnited.com addresses the issue by stating they will split their home games between Launceston’s Aurora Stadium and a yet to be decided Hobart base, most likely Bellerive.
Summer in both parts of the island provides fantastic weather for spectator sports, and separating the home games in this way may, in a strange way, keep supporters interested – if the team isn’t expected for three weeks to a month, each game should be close to full as it will be fans last chance to watch until they come back.
This may even be an advantage for the team when bad form strikes, as games will keep a certain novelty factor, and the urge to watch may hopefully override the urge to stay home and avoid more defeat.
Ultimately, the A-League’s success in Tassie might just be a result of the AFL’s failings.
Andrew Demetriou has stated with some conviction that any window for a Tasmanian entry into the AFL has been firmly shut, first with the Hawthorn-Launceston deal and now more so with the North Melbourne-Bellerive Oval deal.
While these deals are for the utmost benefit of both AFL clubs, they have ultimately damaged the prospects of Tasmania having an AFL team within the foreseeable future.
The most damaging aspects of these deals for the Tasmanian AFL bid are the fact that two Victorian teams will now dominate the footy market, and, importantly, will no doubt benefit from the north-south divide. Both clubs would be foolish not to play on this and forge a new rivalry in the state to bolster numbers.
Tasmania United, being a homegrown Tasmanian entity not a transplant or a team ‘on loan’ from the mainland, will be able to gain more support from proud locals, starved for too long of a professional team from the football codes to call their own.
And, importantly, they may succeed where the AFL wouldn’t even attempt in succeeding, in truly uniting the island.
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