LEGENDS BACK US IN
LETHAL: It’s inevitable Tassie will get a team MALTHOUSE: State must get Suns’ licence
“LETHAL” Leigh Mattthews says a Tasmanian AFL team is now inevitable and fellow legend Mick Malthouse has publicly called for the e Gold Coast club to be reelocated south to become e the h Tasmanian Suns. Matthews, left, said: “There is a groundswell for Tasmania; if you are g going to subsidise footy, make sure your backyard is looked after — and Tasmania is totally your backyard.” Malthouse, right, s said Tasmania “deserves at a team in the league” — but th the Gold Coast did not.
“LETHAL” Leigh Matthews says a Tasmanian AFL team in inevitable while fellow league legend Mick Malthouse has called for the Gold Coast club to be relocated south to become the Tasmanian Suns.
It comes as the Suns drew just 6060 people to its game at the Gabba — the lowest for an AFL game in Brisbane — while a little over 9000 saw the GWS Giants lose to the West Coast in Western Sydney.
Speaking on Melbourne radio, Matthews — voted the best player of the 20th century and a four-time premiership coach — said the AFL would continue to pump good money after bad into the two expansion clubs.
“For the first time I think a team based in Tasmania is now inevitable,” Matthews said.
He said the league could not go beyond its current 18 team set-up, but the ongoing viability of the Giants and the Suns would be on the agenda for the next broadcast negotiations.
“Towards the end of this next television rights agreement which is the next five or six years I think the thought has to be asked, ‘is it still valid?’,” he said.
“’Do we still keep going with the experiment? Because I think there is a growing thought that really Tasmania should have a team.”
When it was raised that Tasmania would not bring any extra additional eyeballs to TV screens as it was already a football state, Matthews, who still lives in Brisbane, said: “Well there’s no TV money up here to be honest. Seriously the ninth game is worth nothing.
“There is a ground swell for Tasmania, if you are going to subsidise footy make sure your backyard is being looked after and Tasmania is totally your football backyard.
“No time soon I suspect but I reckon in the years ahead there might be a groundswell that says if we are going to subsidise a few teams, which the AFL is always going to have to do if you have 18 teams, let’s subsidise one in our own backyard.”
Malthouse was just as scathing about the AFL’s devotion to the expansion clubs at the hands of Tasmania.
The Suns came into the AFL in 2011 and have not finished higher than 12th despite being given a host of the best young talent and the then league’s best player, Gary Ablett.
“There is an under-utilised AFL dominant state in our country that deserves a team in the league, and that is Tasmania,” Malthouse wrote in his Herald-Sun column.
“The crowds would be bigger, the support greater, and by getting Tasmanian football back on track, another talent pool would re-emerge for all the clubs’ takings.
“Aside from the Lions’ dominant era in the early 2000s, development of AFL football in Queensland has stalled,” he wrote.