COAST HOPE
Burnie’s gone, but TSL boss still keen for North-West presence
THE Dockers’ ship has officially sunk with the Burnie Football Club confirming it will not be fielding a side for the 2018 TSL season, but AFL Tasmania is still full steam ahead on the state league.
TSL general manager Carl Saunders acknowledges that there may need to be some out-of-the-box thinking to get a presence from the North-West Coast of Tasmania back into the TSL.
“AFL Tasmania is fully committed to the state league,” Saunders said.
“We see a bright future for it going forward and we want to work on having a presence on the coast.
“Our focus will quickly turn to the current group of players, particularly those in the acad- emy and finding them a place they can play footy in 2018.
“More broadly I guess there are some challenges around how we have a genuine statewide league competition that includes the coast.”
Last Friday night Burnie held a function to hopefully save the 132-year-old club from having to drop out of the TSL, but during a board meeting on Monday night the deci- sion to withdraw was made because the club was unable to promise that it could fill one side for a whole season.
“We had to face reality and make a tough call,” Burnie president Steve Dowling said.
“We didn’t want to further embarrass AFL Tasmania and the TSL beyond today.”
Dowling said the club’s position sneaked up on him and the board and that the issues started when the club re-entered a senior and reserves side into the North West Football League (NWFL) in 2015.
“We took some awful beatings, which forced the withdrawal last year from the NWFL,” he said. “We have lost three years of players.
“It’s basically player-related and the experiences that they have had.”
With Devonport also dropping out of the TSL late last year, the North-West Coast of Tasmania has no club representing it in the state’s main competition. Burnie is hoping to join Devonport in the NWFL but there are no guarantees with the league yet to make a decision.
“If we go into recess I doubt we will get back up,” Dowling said. “We have to maintain ourselves as a club.
“If they [the NWFL] say no, we are out, we are finished.”