FUTURE OF PRE-FINALS BYE ON SHAKY GROUND
THE State League’s pre-finals bye is in the gun from several TSL coaches and AFL Tasmania boss Damian Gill says its future is under a cloud and even this year’s post-season break could be axed.
The loudest opponent is Clarence coach Peter Ryan, who dislikes the one-week break between the end of the roster series and start of the finals because it disadvantages the Roos.
Clarence has a bye in the final round of the home-and-away series, and if the Roos make the finals they have the pre-finals bye meaning they will not play a game for three weeks leading into potentially playing an elimination final.
It comes as the TSL has a full round bye this weekend, which was inserted into the roster when it was drawn late last year as a precaution against Covid-19 and how clubs might have been affected.
“At the time we supported the bye mid-season just to see how the virus played out, but I didn’t feel there was a necessity to have one at the end of the year,” Ryan said. “The league is having discussions about what they are going to do, but I didn’t see the need to have an end-of-season one.
“As it stands, we [Clarence] have a bye now, a bye in the last round, and a bye before the finals.”
Gill said the need for a postseason break was being reconsidered. “We are looking at that at the moment and whether it’s required and what that might look like,” he said.
“We have to decide whether we bring forward a final or keep it as it so teams have a breather.
“We’ve discussed it at our operations meetings and it was raised at the TSL presidents meeting this week.
“The idea was to have a catchup round and that we may have required it, but we are in active discussions about whether or not to make use of it if a catch-up round.”
North Launceston coach Brad Cox-Goodyer was also not a fan of the pre-finals bye.
“It’s frustrating,” Cox-Goodyer said. “It just prolongs the wait to get into playing finals footy.
“They might potentially get rid of it but we are a planning for it.”
Tigers coach Trent Baumeler supports the mid-season bye as well as the post-season break.
Dual Launceston premiership coach Mitch Thorp was on-board with the end-of-season bye.