I spent most of last week in Hobart. No, it wasn’t second prize in the pub raffle; it was to attend my brother’s 80th birthday party, which isn’t a bad reason to make a trip anywhere.
While there I took the opportunity of sounding out some local opinion on the subject of a Tasmanian team in the AFL, about which I found a surprising lack of missionary zeal.
“It’ll never happen,” one of my best mates from way back said. “There’s too much politicking involved.”
Then he launched into a forceful outline of why, if it did happen, the team would have to be based in Hobart, of course.
“This is where the corporate dollar is,” he said. “And that would be the main thing deciding where the team would be.”
But that ever-reliable barometer of public opinion, the taxi driver taking me to the airport on the way home, plumped just as strongly for Launceston, where Hawthorn have built up a solid following as a basis for a Tasmanian team to build on.
“York Park’s the best football ground in the state, in fact some of the players have said it’s got just about the best surface in Australia, while the Bellerive ground in Hobart has been developed especially for cricket,” he said. “And Lonnie’s better situated to get fans from the north-west and the north-east who wouldn’t travel to Hobart.”
Nothing much has changed since I escaped 40-odd years ago.
One thing nearly everyone did seem to agree on, though, was that former Brisbane and Fitzroy champion Alastair Lynch should coach the Tasmanian team to play Queensland at (you guessed it) Bellerive on June 7.
Lynch has been approached and is receptive to the idea if he can make time between his media and other commitments.
“It’s a terrific honour for the guys down there to think of me in that sort of role,” Lynch, a former state player and a member of Tasmania’s Team of the Century, told the Mercury newspaper.
“As everyone would appreciate, it is more than just the match day, it is very important you have a very good understanding of the players, which I feel wouldn’t be an issue, but you have got to dedicate time into the lead-up of the game.”
But both Lynch and former state coach Andy Bennett thought this could be overcome by Lynch studying videos of the players chosen in the squad.
“The players would get really excited about wanting to play under someone like him and learning from him,” Bennett said.
It will be interesting to see how the crowd for the game stacks up against those at Hawthorn’s home games at York Park this year, especially if Lynch, who played 120 games for Fitzroy and 186 for Brisbane after being recruited from Wynyard in Tasmania’s far north-west, does take the job.
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