Tassie lets AFL off hook

ST KILDA hero and former Tassie footy boss Barry Breen says our state’s passion for the game is likely the reason the AFL always ignores us.

Mr Breen, who led a push for a Tassie-based AFL side in the 1990s, said that as a heartland state, “the AFL don’t have to do a lot of work down there to ensure the local population supports football — they’ve already got it”.

He suggested the first fix needed for Tassie’s footy crisis was a proper pathway for talented youth — and so he said the state’s under-18 Mariners side should be reinstated as a full-time member of the Victorian TAC Cup competition.

THE Gold Coast has been a “nightmare” for the AFL and the money that started and continues to support the struggling Suns could have been spent in Tasmania.

That’s the view of St Kilda hero Barry Breen, the man who literally won the Saints their only premiership off his own boot and was boss of Tasmanian football during its heyday in the 1990s.

Breen, who lives in Melbourne, has been watching Tasmanian football and believes the first fix is to have the state’s elite under-18 side, the Tassie Mainers, reinstated as a full-time member of the Victorian TAC Cup competition.

“The interest that people now have in Hawthorn and North Melbourne, and the other 16 clubs, has disempowered local footy,” Breen said.

“The first job for local footy is to put down a clear pathway for the kids.

“What is most necessary is to recreate the Mariners. That is essential to give the kids the pathway — and the AFL has got to fund it properly.”

Breen said despite being a significant market, the Gold Coast had been a problem for most national sports.

“The Gold Coast has been a nightmare for every football code — AFL, NRL, soccer, you name it, basketball,” he said.

“For some reason it doesn’t gel.

“South East Queensland is one of the fastest growing areas in Australia so there’s a good reason why it [Gold Coast Suns] should be there.

“Tassie is a heartland and sometimes that hurts you because the AFL don’t have to do a lot of work down there to ensure the local population supports football. They’ve already got it.

“All of the money that has gone to the Suns could have gone into a Tasmanian team, but I’m not across all the politics of that.”

Breen was part of the earliest push for a Tasmanian AFL team.

“A lot of people have pushed hard for an AFL team for the past 25 years,” Breen said.

“You can go back to the video we produced with Max Walker and we made a presentation to [former AFL CEO] Wayne Jackson when, back then, the cost of putting a team in the competition was $8 million. If you don’t have $50 million today, you’re not going to be able to compete.

“If the AFL wants to put a team in Tassie, they would have to support it the way they have supported the Gold Coast and Greater Western Sydney.”