WITH the Devils a game clear in last place on the VFL ladder, Tasmania's state team losing to Queensland on Saturday, and rumblings about the standard of local competitions, many believe Tasmanian football is at its lowest ever ebb. Here AFL Tasmania's new chairman Dominic Baker, 36, talks to BRETT STUBBS in the first of a two-part series about the state of the game, its future at all levels, losing to the Maroons in Launceston, and the return of State-of-Origin.
STATE OF THE GAME
WITH the Devils in last place on the VFL ladder, losing the state game on Saturday, forgotten about in the original State-of-Origin discussions, then losing the under-18s to NSW-ACT and the Northern Territory, is Tasmanian football at its lowest level?
I think it has actually improved. I think we have been at a lower ebb than this over the past four years. The work that the NTFL and the SFL have done administratively has been absolutely terrific. Those competitions are administered really well and you have to start somewhere. The Devils sit at the top of the development pathway if you look at last year. Although we didn't finish in the finals, we still had four guys drafted, three in the top 20. The Devils as a product are really working quite well. But the broader issue for the Devils is what's underneath. Talent-wise, there just seems to be a very large gap between local football and playing with the Devils. I go around the games and I've seen nearly all of the Premier League teams play, and there are not a lot of players you could pluck out for the Devils. At the same time, the gap between the VFL and the AFL is getting broader and broader. That is why Collingwood and Carlton want to go it alone [in the VFL]. I don't think Tassie football is at its lowest ebb, I think it is ripe to take its next step, and we will be working that out over the next couple of months. Whether they are subtle changes or a revolution, who knows.
How do you fix the difference in standard between local and VFL football? Do you go back to a statewide league?
The most difficult thing I see with regional footy is how can you have a group of really good players playing against a side that isn't competitive, and how do they continue to develop while they are playing in that competition? One of the things we are going to look at is how do we narrow down that funnel? Is it a statewide league? Is it some kind of super league North and South? The South was probably on its knees two or three years ago but under [SFL president] Roger Viney's really strong leadership, he has brought that back together.
It is a competitive competition besides two or three [teams], but that gap there is still quite large. In a state our size we should be diluting that talent down to as few teams as possible. Whether it is statewide or two conferences like Blair Brownless suggested, or elite North and South competition, we don't really know. We haven't got any fixed ideas, but we are going to be having a pretty close look at it.
To lift the standard, you are going to have to make some tough decisions that could involve forcing clubs out of their present competitions into lower levels.
The thing about footy over the next couple of years is there are not going to be any easy decisions. They are all going to be hard. And the one thing I'm finding hard about this role, as soon as you open your mouth, you split different groups, and there tends to be fewer on your side. In saying that, we have got a great group on the board. We have evolved from an organisation that didn't have a lot of respect from government or its stakeholders. We have got [former AFL players] Brendon Gale and Scott Clayton on the board, which really was a coup for us to get guys of that calibre. As a board we've come a long way but the real work is about to start now. The members of the public are ready for something to happen now as well, and the time is probably right.
Do you think football in five years' time will look anything like it is now?
That is a good question. A lot happens in five years, nothing stays the same. Things will change. In talking with administrators, but particularly players, they are craving quality, and one of the things that I have been keen to push to the AFL is that my chairmanship will be about quality -- bringing quality into grassroots footy in Tasmania and ensuring everything we do has an essence of quality about it. When you talk to the players they long to play in a quality competition, whether it is the Devils or guys from Kingborough or Glenorchy. Good players long to play in good competitions. They like to test themselves, that is what footy is all about. Whether it is radically different, I don't know, but I don't think it will stay the same -- we can't afford to let it stay the same.
LOSING TO QUEENSLAND
HOW disappointing was Saturday night? Three-quarters of that Tasmanian team play together all the time in the VFL, the second-best league in the nation, on their home turf against a team that comes together once a year.
Exactly. Queensland has often slipped underneath the radar in footy. They have got a 100-year history in footy, they are not the pushovers everybody thinks they are. They are coming off the back of a very successful AFL club based in their region. Their participation is up 300 per cent. Footy is the No. 1 ticket in town up there at the moment aside from Origin [rugby league]. They brought a group of really hard- running, enthusiastic guys down here and they wanted to prove as much as we did that they should be playing State-of-Origin next year. They don't want to be mixed up with New South Wales. But it was very disappointing from our perspective to be beaten, particularly on our home turf.
STATE-OF-ORIGIN
IF there is a State-or-Origin series next year, how confident are you Tasmania will be in it and as a stand-alone state?
Pretty confident. Queensland, particularly, are pushing to have their own team, which they should, and given that this is a celebration of 150 years of footy and a celebration of the past, I don't think it would be feasible to leave Tasmania out.
IN the second of this two-part series, AFL Tasmania chairman Dominic Baker talks to BRETT STUBBS about the Devils and their head coach Daryn Cresswell, and Tasmania's relationship with the AFL.
PARTIAL ALIGNMENT WITH KANGAROOS
DO you think the Devils will be partially aligned next year?
It is under review and it is reviewed every year. Two years of alignment, two years out of the finals. Now AFL clubs want to go their own way. Collingwood and Carlton will definitely be stand-alone next year, anyway. Geelong already is. The Western Bulldogs are keen and maybe the Roos.
It is up for debate at board level, and one of the things we are doing as a board over the next six weeks is that we have got a strategic meetings where we are throwing the operational stuff aside and really having a look at where we go with the alignment and all those kinds of things. It is definitely on the agenda.Has the alignment cost you some support?
I don't know if we have lost support. It has been a topic that has been passionately debated by a lot of people. When we went into the alignment, we put together a group of independent football experts in Tassie -- people like Andy Bennett and Robert Groenewegen. It was most certainly their advice that if we wanted to win the competition, we needed to have the cattle. Finishing fourth [2003] was great, but Mathew [Armstrong], when he was coach, quite clearly thought that with the playing group he had and the talent in the community, he had to bring something in to go to the next step.
I think we might have disenfranchised a couple of people along the way, but when you look at the side, you are only talking about five or six blokes a week. If it was 50-50, you could understand it.Can you stay in the VFL as a stand-alone club next year?
We could go back. Certainly it is going to test the talent, and certainly we would be after a better deal from the VFL to ensure we could recruit in. Tasmanian teams need to prop their stock up with outside influence. Whether it is cricket, basketball or football, you need to be able to bring some people in.
THE SANFL
Are you leaning towards South Australia?
If you ask the South Australians, they seem to have us over the line already. We play in the VFL because we believe it is the second-best competition in the county because of the amount of AFL-listed players who play in it. It is an attractive competition for players to go and play in financially. They [the SANFL] have got a nine-team comp, they are very keen to get a 10th in but we are in the VFL at the moment and we are in it because we know having 17-, 18- and 19-year-old kids playing in that system helps them get drafted.
I don't think we will be going anywhere next year, but a lot of it will depend on the tier-two review and what support we can get from the AFL and the VFL to remain in that competition. You start playing against fully listed Collingwood, Carlton, the Western Bulldogs and the Kangaroos reserves team every week -- we have got a lot of room to make up to get to that level.
DARYN CRESSWELL
ARE you happy with the way Daryn Cresswell is going?
There is no doubt Daryn is a very, very good footy coach. I've had a chance to listen to him speak to the players up close a couple of times and he knows his stuff. He has got a young group and this is his first year as a stand-alone coach. It is not easy to be the No. 1 man, and it takes a bit of getting used to. This is his first year and I think he is doing a wonderful job under a fair bit of pressure. We are really happy with him. He presents to the board at every meeting, he's upbeat, he's very positive about the future for some of these guys and, at 1-8 [win-loss], it is pretty hard to stay positive like that. He is going along well. He is talking about year two and three now and we are quite excited he has got a plan to go longer than that.
Does he have to take responsibility for where the team is at present?
There is no doubt the buck stops with the coach with some of that stuff. We understand as a board, and I think the community understands, we don't have the `cattle' of some of the other clubs. But I would be worried if I could see signs of him not committing or him not putting the work in. If that stuff had dropped off, I would be concerned. But that stuff has increased. His performances as a coach is getting better and better. He is just not getting the results on the ground.
TASMANIA AND THE AFL
Do you think the AFL just forgot Tasmania when they did their original thought processes?
There certainly wasn't any malice in [AFL chief executive] Andrew Demetriou leaving us out. He simply answered a question from a journalist and hasn't put Tasmania in there. The positive out of it from our perspective was the Tasmanian football public, particularly the football icons like Rodney Eade, swung out of the trees to come to our defence, which was great. I am pretty certain there was no intention to leave us out.
THE AFL talks of expansion in South-East Queensland and Western Sydney but never Tasmania, and we were left out of the original State-of-Origin plans. There is a perception that because Tasmania is already an AFL market, the AFL forgets the state and treats it with contempt.
Sometimes I think we as a state get left behind as well, but if we want to play in the AFL -- and this is our ultimate dream and that might be 10 or 15 years down the track -- the only way will be if we put together a solid, logical plan to how it will happen. The AFL is not going to come down here and say, `Here is a truckload of money, go and get yourself a team'. We are going to have to get ourselves organised to do it. There are a few steps we need to take before that. One of them is to make sure the quality of football here is the best it can possibly be, whether that is Devils or grassroots.
Those two things have to be spot on. We are getting ourselves organised to make sure our backyard is very tidy. That is what we will be working on. It is a bit of a Tasmanian thing to say we get overlooked and it is quite easy to blame others. I would rather be a bit more proactive and say we will get funding if we put logical, well-thought-out plans in place. If the AFL see that succeeding, we build a pathway of successes and the AFL will say, `These guys know what they are doing', so if they want a truly national competition, they will come down here.
Last Modified on 22/02/2008 13:23