We stand as one in backing our team

ONE of the many uniquely great things about Tasmania is the passion we all have for the region we choose to live in.

But we all know that no matter where on this island we call home, we are Tasmanians first and foremost. And that’s what those calling the shots at AFL House do not seem to understand.

They see our glorious parochialism as a bad thing, as a reason we cannot have our own team in the AFL and AFLW. Our state, they argue, is hopelessly divided.

Remember former AFL chairman Mike Fitzpatrick’s challenge to our state when he departed the job in early 2017? It was simple: to resolve the North-South divide.

Fast forward 12 months and current AFL chief Gillon McLachlan declared last year that the pathway towards a team relied on representative footy in our state having “one brand and hopefully getting unity”.

With those challenges in mind, today the editors of the state’s three daily newspapers have joined forces to use our front pages to show that what unites us is greater than what divides us — and that we all share the same dream, of a Tasmanian team in the AFL and in the AFLW.

As the editor of a newspaper it is your job to understand the sentiment in your community. And so the fact all three newspapers — the

Mercury, the Examiner in Launceston and the Advocate on the Coast — call for a team on the same day shows that what is more important than the endless speculation about where a team might be based in Tasmania and where it might play its home games is this: that our state deserves its own team.

This combined push shows perhaps more than any other action we can take that no matter the region we come from, that we are united in this call for our own team in the “national” competition of the sport we started playing here in 1864 — and to which our state has since bred and delivered to the elite mainland competition more than its fair share of superstars.

This is, then, a move today that sends a powerful message to those Melbourne-based footy powerbrokers that their primary argument against this dream that we share has no merit.

You can do your bit too. Head to unitedwestand.com.au today and pledge your support to show those mainlanders that Tasmania can come together on this.

Let’s all stand as one to send a clear message to the mainland.

Let’s show them that today, all of Tasmania is united behind this push for a team. The time is now.