The Examiner's Rob Shaw, Josh Partridge and Brian Allen unpack and discuss sports news from across Northern Tasmania. Video by Aaron Smith and Phillip Biggs (17/4/24)
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00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - Welcome to episode 48 of the Press Boxing Examiner's
00:10 weekly sportscast, 48 closing in on the half century
00:14 with all the confidence of Glenn McGuire.
00:17 Another week, another state league drama,
00:19 but we'll get to that later.
00:19 We're gonna start with boxing.
00:21 Big week for boxing in Launceston, Joshy.
00:23 - Yeah, it was all the biggest week since Daniel Gill
00:26 had his world title fight in 2016.
00:28 So what we had down here was we had an Australian title
00:30 on the line and we had a Launceston local,
00:32 Tyler Blizzard, fighting for it.
00:34 And it was fantastic to say that Tyler came home
00:37 with the goods and won the, this is quite a long name.
00:41 So, so certainly--
00:42 - How many, who he was fighting, Josh?
00:44 - He was fighting Citadet Finenza
00:47 for the Australian National Boxing Federation
00:51 Australasian Super Featherweight title.
00:54 - Yeah.
00:54 - So long-winded, all of it.
00:56 But yeah, he won that via unanimous decision,
00:58 which was the third time he's done that in his career.
01:00 And he's now at six and O.
01:01 So he's really setting himself
01:03 as obviously one of Australia's best boxers.
01:05 So it's good for the Tasmanian.
01:06 - And we had our photographer, Craig George,
01:08 was in the crowd there,
01:09 but he got some great photographs.
01:10 - Yeah, he was just, I'm not gonna say sitting
01:12 with the regulars because that sounds horrendous,
01:15 but he was sitting with the general public
01:17 and he was taking some fantastic photos.
01:18 And yeah, obviously,
01:20 but they'll be coming across your screen now.
01:21 So have a look at what he's done.
01:22 - And I remember the Daniel Gill fight
01:24 and it's great that boxing doesn't get a big,
01:28 a lot of headlines in Launceston,
01:30 but it's great that we're still producing some big names.
01:32 - Yeah, and that's when I spoke to Leighton McFerrin,
01:35 who was someone that was on the, not the undercard,
01:37 he was the fight before Tyler,
01:38 he's a Lonnie boy as well.
01:40 And he was just saying how fantastic it is
01:42 for both Tasmania and Launceston to host such an event
01:45 and how big, for such a small place,
01:48 how big Lonnie and Tasmania is in the sport of boxing.
01:51 - Okay, moving on to football.
01:54 Another big weekend in football
01:56 in all the local competitions.
01:57 We're gonna start with the NTFA.
01:58 Brian, talk us through it.
02:00 - Yeah, in the NTFA Premier,
02:02 we had three close results.
02:04 So yeah, Rochereau only won by a goal against Georgetown,
02:09 which yeah, Rochereau won with a reigning premiers
02:13 from last year, but Georgetown finished second last.
02:15 And to be honest,
02:16 the Saints have just improved dramatically
02:19 based on their first two results this season.
02:21 They beat Scottsdale convincingly in round one,
02:24 and they've almost beaten the reigning premiers.
02:27 According to the Play HQ,
02:28 they're up by 25 points at halftime.
02:30 So exciting times.
02:32 That's great for the competition
02:34 'cause it's another team
02:35 that's quite competitive this season.
02:37 I think I saw Luke Crane's name in the best
02:40 or in the team anyway.
02:42 And he was, you know, champion of the sand full
02:45 and won the league medal over there.
02:47 So he's a Georgetown guy.
02:49 So that's great for them.
02:50 Then we had Hillwood beat Bracknell by 13 points,
02:55 but it was a funny game, Rob,
02:57 because Bracknell led by 36 points a quarter time.
03:02 And yeah, it was sated sort of in the middle of the ground.
03:06 And yeah, I've played at Bracknell before in that,
03:09 but you can notice like a downhill slant
03:11 to the mountain's end.
03:12 And I thought, gee, yeah, there's a clear scoring end here.
03:15 And then in the second quarter,
03:17 Hillwood kicked, I think it was six goals to one.
03:20 And it was a three point game at halftime.
03:22 And then it sort of evened out from there.
03:24 But I like that about country footy
03:26 is the grounds always have a bit of an impact.
03:29 Can you guys recall that
03:31 in any of your kind of country sport reporting?
03:34 - You know all the grounds better than me, Joshy.
03:36 - Not off the top of my head,
03:37 but my immediate thought is when it starts getting wet
03:40 in the middle of winter,
03:41 there's some bloody interesting results
03:43 that come along with country footy
03:45 and some great photos really as well that you can see.
03:48 I remember one day at Bridge North
03:49 that was just right on top of the ground
03:51 was just absolutely cooked.
03:53 And there was just some fantastic photos
03:54 of the mud and everything that goes around with it.
03:56 But yeah, results off the top of my head.
03:58 I can't remember too much, but.
03:59 - Yeah, yeah, but I think that's great.
04:01 'Cause like the home ground advantage
04:03 in say like cricket is really significant.
04:06 Obviously in international cricket,
04:08 of course with the Aussies,
04:09 but like at a local sport level,
04:12 like say you're playing basketball or something like that,
04:14 like you have the conventional sort of basketball court
04:17 and the ring height and that.
04:19 But with footy, it's a real mixed bag
04:22 and you get all sorts of sort of lengths
04:25 and shapes of the oval.
04:26 So yeah, that was an interesting observation.
04:29 And then we had South Launceston beat Bridge North
04:32 by eight point, nine points, sorry, at home.
04:36 And yeah, that was another good result.
04:38 They've had two close wins in the first couple of weeks.
04:42 The thing I wanted to note is that with the NTFA Premier,
04:47 I don't think we're really gonna know
04:49 where some of these better sides are at
04:51 until the end of the season.
04:53 And the reason is because some of the best players
04:55 in the comp are either injured or they've got commitments.
04:59 So South Launceston's Jay Blackberry,
05:02 who you guys know well from the state league in recent times,
05:06 he's doing the firefighting training course this year,
05:10 which has been an ambition of his.
05:11 So that takes out a fair chunk of his time.
05:13 And Coach Jack Ma said he's not gonna be back
05:16 until late in the season.
05:18 In the last few rounds, he won the league medal last year.
05:21 So big player.
05:22 And then Hillwood's Jake Pierce, they're playing coach.
05:26 He's told me on the weekend he's going in for surgery
05:29 next week on a lingering injury he's had since last year,
05:34 which is a herniated disc pressing on one of his nerves,
05:38 causing nerve pain down his leg.
05:40 So that's a pretty serious injury on the face of it.
05:46 And yeah, he's up there, he's coaching from the sidelines.
05:49 He said he's enjoying that,
05:50 but he doesn't expect to be back until late in the season.
05:53 So yeah, I don't know.
05:55 Is there much sort of injury news in sort of your sports?
05:59 I know Robbie did a big injury story.
06:03 Will?
06:04 - Yeah, Will Fleming broke his leg earlier in the season
06:07 playing for Riverside Olympic against Lonnie City.
06:09 I caught up with Will actually last week.
06:11 And when a young person gets an injury like that,
06:15 there's the physical injury,
06:16 but there's also the mental side of it.
06:18 For a young, fit, healthy, active person
06:20 to suddenly not be able to play the sports that they love,
06:23 it's really hard on them.
06:24 And I really feel for Will.
06:25 He was trying to be upbeat,
06:27 but I could tell he was quite down
06:28 about the whole situation, yeah.
06:30 - Any big outs from North or Lonnie yet, mate?
06:33 - Not really, no, not off the top of my head.
06:35 I don't think, and there hasn't been many
06:37 like during the course of play either,
06:39 which I suppose the first couple of rounds,
06:42 the players are always susceptible
06:43 coming off the pre-season to a, not a big injury,
06:46 but an injury of sorts.
06:48 So not so much as yet, no.
06:49 - Moving on to other footy news,
06:53 it seems we can't go a week at the moment
06:55 without some sort of development
06:56 in relation to the end of the state league.
06:58 And last week it was announced that
07:00 we'd already run the story that
07:02 it's unlikely that Tasmania is going to join the VFL in 2025.
07:05 Well, since then, Lonnie and North have both come out
07:09 and pretty much rejected the NTFA Premier Division
07:11 competition that AFL Tasmania was trying to put them in.
07:14 They've proposed that they would like to form
07:16 a Northwest/North competition in the style of the old NTFL.
07:21 Since then, the Northwest competition has pretty much said
07:24 they're not interested in that,
07:25 all of which leaves North and Lonnie in complete limbo.
07:28 We've got no idea where they're going to be
07:29 playing footy next season.
07:31 What do you make of it all, Josh?
07:32 - It's concerning, isn't it?
07:34 I mean, they are legitimately without a home
07:37 next year at the moment.
07:38 Unfortunately, they've kind of made their own bed
07:41 with the NTFA at the moment.
07:43 So it'll be interesting to see whether they,
07:45 if they have to go crawling back to the NTFA,
07:47 what'll happen there.
07:49 But yeah, they're really,
07:51 your column really described it well today
07:54 and kind of talking about what could happen,
07:58 because no one really knows at the moment.
07:59 Like even speaking to these coaches and everything,
08:01 no one really knows what's happening.
08:04 So yeah, it's certainly not over.
08:08 - And it was interesting that Damien Gill came out last week
08:11 and suggested that Lonnie and North
08:13 were showing a disrespect to the NTFA.
08:16 Well, Lonnie and North feel that AFL Tasmania
08:18 was showing a disrespect to them.
08:20 So there's not many friends being made in the whole thing.
08:23 - Yeah, and in the conversations that we've had
08:26 with the presidents,
08:27 that was something they'd wanted to clear up straight away.
08:30 We're not trying to disrespect the NTFA.
08:32 And obviously it has come across that to the higher ups.
08:37 But I mean, that's just the nature of the business
08:41 at the moment, isn't it?
08:42 - So moving on to the happier news in the state league,
08:45 what happened at the weekend?
08:46 - Depends who you ask as to whether it's happier or not, Rob.
08:49 North Launcester defeated North Hobart by 87 points.
08:52 Clearly the better side.
08:53 North Hobart tried to really put the pressure on for a bit,
08:58 but North Lonnie were too good.
09:00 And Clarence defeated Lonnie by 58 points at Windsor Park.
09:04 It was a stretch of 10 or 15 minutes
09:06 where Clarence really took the game away from them,
09:08 which sounds ridiculous in a 58 point win,
09:10 but that's what it was.
09:12 The rest of the game was actually pretty even
09:13 and Lonnie certainly made a good account for themselves.
09:16 - Yep.
09:17 I can just wrap up the soccer news from the weekend.
09:19 It wasn't a very good weekend for our local sides.
09:22 Launceston United, Lonnie City and Riverside
09:24 all lost in NPL Tasmania,
09:26 as did Riverside in the Women's Super League.
09:28 But the only winners were Launceston United
09:30 in the Women's Super League.
09:31 They beat Taruna 6-1, which sets up quite a nice weekend.
09:35 We've got two big derbies coming up
09:37 in both statewide competitions
09:38 between Riverside and Lonnie United,
09:40 both being played at Windsor Park.
09:42 The NPL game, the men's competition,
09:44 is Friday night at 8.15
09:47 and the women's game is Saturday afternoon at 2.15.
09:50 There's a lot of players for those two teams
09:53 that have played against,
09:55 will be playing against their old sides,
09:56 which you'll obviously get a lot in local competitions.
09:58 So I think both those two games
10:00 will be quite interesting to watch.
10:02 Anything else, fellas?
10:04 - I think you've got a milestone to mention, Rob.
10:07 - That's true, yeah.
10:08 Well, we mentioned Meg Connolly last week
10:09 and I found out at the game
10:11 that this weekend is Meg's 100th game.
10:13 So I had a chat with her
10:15 and we've got that story going in this week.
10:17 And she will captain Riverside in their game
10:20 against Lonnie United on Saturday afternoon.
10:23 I think that's pretty much all we've got time for.
10:24 So thanks for tuning in and see you next week.
10:28 (upbeat music)
10:30 (upbeat music)
10:33 (dramatic music)