The Examiner's Rob Shaw, Josh Partridge, Ben Hann and Brian Allen unpack and discuss sports news from across Northern Tasmania. Video by Aaron Smith and Paul Scambler (14/5/2024)
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00:00 Welcome to episode 52 of the Pressbox, the Examiner's weekly sportscast, which means
00:12 we've been going at least a year, and it feels like it.
00:15 We've got the whole band back together today and we're going to focus entirely on AFL because
00:19 we had our first AFL game of the season at York Park, as it used to be known, at the
00:23 weekend.
00:24 You were there, Josh.
00:25 Give us a report of what you saw.
00:26 It was a game between two teams.
00:32 It was a weird game.
00:33 At the start it felt like it was going to be really free-flowing and high-scoring, and
00:38 then it just stopped.
00:39 Neither team scored, and kept their goal for 25 minutes.
00:42 But I suppose the actual game isn't really what the talking points came from, although
00:47 Hawks did win by five points, which bitterly hurt the St Kilda supporter inside of me.
00:52 But there was 15,112 people there, which is the biggest crowd since before COVID at Utah's
00:59 Stadium.
01:00 So it was really good to see the two sides with Launceston heritage, if you want to call
01:06 it, get well supported by the Launceston community.
01:09 We've often seen probably overestimates of crowds in the past.
01:14 Now I remember talking to the Hawthorne coming into this game, and they said they were hopeful
01:18 for 13,000.
01:19 They obviously smashed that, and it genuinely looked full.
01:24 Does it make the game better as an experience for you to cover when there are that many
01:29 people at the ground?
01:30 100%.
01:31 If I was there covering just the standard of football, it might have hurt my eyes a
01:37 little bit.
01:38 But to have a crowd in pretty much full voice, it was a good split as well, being that St
01:44 Kilda have got a pretty strong Launceston history.
01:46 There was probably 60-40% split between the two fan bases, with Hawthorne only just being
01:54 above that.
01:55 So it was really good to see people get around it.
01:58 I'm writing a column on this later today, which will go in tomorrow's copy of the Examiner,
02:03 which is talking about when the Devils come in to play here, those two teams need to be
02:08 two of the sides that play at Utah's Stadium, as opposed to playing in Hobart or anything
02:13 like that.
02:14 I think due to the strong histories and all that kind of thing, they need to be playing
02:17 at Utah's Stadium, and to get the best possible result out of the Launceston crowds and things
02:22 like that.
02:23 I was at Perth, and the general feeling at that ground was, "Why is this being played
02:31 on a Sunday?
02:32 You mentioned this last week.
02:34 We would have all probably liked to have been there."
02:35 So the fact that that crowd could have been even bigger had it been on a Sunday, potentially,
02:40 we'll never know.
02:41 But I think it's a really positive sign.
02:45 Absolutely.
02:46 Do we think that basically most of that crowd was from the mainland?
02:49 Like walking around the Harvest Market on Saturday morning, and also having gone to
02:55 probably the marquee local footy game of the weekend with Brad Cox Goodyear playing for
03:00 Rochelle against Hillwood, that there was still a big crowd at that game.
03:04 I actually didn't hear anything about that AFL game personally, but that basically takes
03:10 most of your local footy fans, they go to the local fixtures.
03:15 I know that the Launceston Blues had the bye.
03:19 Am I correct?
03:20 North Launceston, sorry, had the bye.
03:24 So that's a major team that was available to go to the game.
03:29 Did you get that feeling that most people had come over from, say, Melbourne?
03:32 It was something I hadn't really thought about, but I interviewed some St Kilda supporters
03:37 earlier in the week, and two of those were from Queensland.
03:40 They had lived in Launceston previously, and having seen this fixture, came down and supported
03:47 the Saints in Tassie.
03:48 It was the first time the woman that I interviewed had been at Utah's stadium since she was about
03:52 15 or 16, and she was, I'm not going to have her guess at her age here, but she was getting
03:58 on.
03:59 So I think a lot of people, potentially expats of Tasmania, saw that opportunity to come
04:05 down and support the two teams.
04:07 So yeah, you could be onto something there, Bristol.
04:09 And I caught the last quarter at the soccer game that I was at.
04:12 A lot of people at the game stopped and watched it in the clubhouse.
04:16 And it did take me back to the heyday of when Hawthorne were winning back-to-back premierships
04:20 and when St Kilda were down here.
04:23 And we were getting 17,000, 18,000 at most games.
04:27 We have, I totally agree with your point about St Kilda and Hawthorne could play here every
04:32 year because they've both kind of got a generation of Tasmanian supporters now, especially Hawthorne.
04:36 They've been here for 20 plus years.
04:39 So a lot of kids have grown up, your sort of age Josh, have grown up supporting Hawthorne.
04:44 When you go to WOS Kick sessions around the town, every second Guernsey is a Hawthorne
04:48 top.
04:49 Yeah, I remember growing up and still kind of into now, I used to despise the people
04:53 that just supported Hawthorne because they played here in Lonning.
04:56 And there was a whole generation of people around my age, a bit younger, a bit older,
05:00 that just supported Hawthorne for the sake of doing it because they played here.
05:04 But that's what Hawthorne wanted to get out of it, or one of the many things that Hawthorne
05:08 wanted to get out of it.
05:09 And it's worked.
05:10 They've got a strong supporter base down here and I think that needs to be tapped into when
05:13 the Devils come into the competition.
05:14 And talking about opponents, Ben, you've been looking into teams that have played here.
05:19 Just talk to us about what you've been up to.
05:20 It looks like you've done a bit of work this week.
05:22 Yeah, it's a bit of a change.
05:24 It's actually three weeks ago.
05:25 So I started a poll, which viewers may or may not have entered into, where I sort of
05:33 asked the question, when the Devils come and play down here, which teams do you want to
05:37 see them play against?
05:38 Now we got a few answers to be predicted.
05:41 The most popular teams like Carlton, Collingwood, Essendon and Richmond all polled very highly.
05:48 But something I just want to point out was, which is what the Devils need to get right
05:53 when they come to play in Launceston is, obviously in the eight games, four this year and the
06:01 four last year, Adelaide, Fremantle, GWS, North Melbourne, St Kilda, West Coast and
06:07 Western Bulldogs have been the teams that have played or will play in those games.
06:13 And they have all polled in the single digits besides St Kilda.
06:17 So it shows you, you know, the teams, people aren't necessarily going to these games because
06:25 it's inconvenient or the Hawks aren't very good or whatever.
06:29 I think it's because they're being put up against opponents that aren't necessarily
06:33 high quality opponents, opponents with fan bases in Tasmania or in Launceston I should
06:41 say.
06:42 And I think the Devils need to get that right.
06:45 Because as you mentioned there, St Kilda and Hawthorne, there's a lot of other teams,
06:51 Geelong even perhaps in those first few years.
06:53 These teams have big followings, people want to see them and if you want to get the northern
06:57 fan base on your side, I think you need to listen to what they want to watch.
07:01 Well you've provided a nice little segue there Ben, because one thing the Devils have
07:04 got right is their choice of the CEO.
07:06 And Brian, they've taken your man after his departure from Richmond.
07:11 So talk to me about Brendan Gale and I suppose how you think the Devils have gone with appointing
07:16 him.
07:17 Yeah, I think he's regarded as the Oracle, based on his footy classified interview in
07:23 2010.
07:26 And it was there that he spoke about his vision, which was about a Richmond side that basically
07:35 hadn't won a premiership for about three decades and hadn't made finals for years, winning
07:43 three premierships by 2020 and significantly increasing their supporter base, or membership
07:50 base rather.
07:52 And it came true.
07:54 Richmond, I believe I've got this all correct, ended up with more than 100,000 members and
08:01 also won their three premierships by the end of 2020, as he predicted.
08:07 And so you can't help but admire the guy and I've watched plenty of Richmond documentaries
08:14 of course and read the books.
08:18 A big theme of that content is the off-field stuff.
08:25 So Peggy O'Neill was the Richmond president as well during their premiership era of recent
08:33 times and Brendan Gale was obviously the CEO and I'm sure there's other figures that I
08:42 suppose, well, they get credit for all the success that happened.
08:48 But basically Peggy and Brendan Gale get a heap of credit for just getting, I guess,
08:56 the house organised off-field that allowed for the success on-field.
09:02 It's one of those things like growing up you play football and you're like, "Oh, how could
09:06 the off-field stuff matter?"
09:07 Like they're not physically playing on the field, but there's just something about being
09:13 organised that helps that sort of thing.
09:17 So it's awesome, the Tassie and I'm just waiting for his next prediction, to be honest.
09:23 Yeah.
09:24 And also I don't think the boss has to be a Tasmanian, that's not obligatory, but being
09:30 Tasmanian and especially coming from the Northwest coast, he will understand all the foibles
09:35 that exist in Tasmania.
09:37 He will understand the North-South divide.
09:39 He will get all of that stuff.
09:41 So he ticks a lot of the right boxes, I think.
09:44 Yeah.
09:45 I wrote this on Sunday.
09:46 It's the best thing the Devils have done since they've existed effectively.
09:50 And they've done some bloody good things, so I suppose to be the best.
09:54 Look, he'd be a sought-after CEO in any sporting club in Australia and he wouldn't come down
10:02 here unless he thought the project was anything other than concrete because he had a great
10:07 thing going at Richmond.
10:08 So why would you leave unless you know that this thing is going to be a product that is
10:12 definitely happening?
10:13 I think it's a massive tick of approval for the Devils and I think it's just about the
10:19 biggest thing that's happened this year for them in terms of getting their project off
10:23 the ground.
10:24 Yeah.
10:25 And I guess on the same subject is I wrote a column this morning about the Labor's U-turn
10:31 on the stadium.
10:32 They came out last week and categorically stated that they now support the stadium.
10:37 So I guess that now means that it's going to happen.
10:40 Both the major parties down here are committed behind the stadium.
10:44 They're committed to the funding and I think after hearing that news, today's column was
10:51 quite critical of the way they changed their stance and a lot of people went to the last
10:56 state election thinking that Labor were anti-stadium.
11:01 So our readers' letters pages over the last week have been filled with people complaining
11:06 that they voted for Labor because they were against the stadium.
11:10 I'm tending to find a lot of people seem to be very much supportive of the Tasmanian team
11:16 but not supportive of having to pay for this stadium.
11:19 And a lot of those letters said that.
11:21 Yeah.
11:22 I think politics is often fraught with those sorts of maybe false promises.
11:28 Labor are very careful with their language.
11:30 I think that's what hurt them fundamentally in the end is I don't think anyone truly knew
11:34 Labor's stance on the whole matter.
11:37 They're not exactly a well-renowned politics podcast, Brian, but I do think I'm not surprised.
11:45 It's probably my own opinion on this is that they changed their view on this.
11:49 They were trying to get votes in the best way they thought they could.
11:52 It didn't work.
11:54 And so now they're just trying to fall in line.
11:56 Yeah.
11:57 So all this is going to happen in 2028.
12:00 So keep viewing until then.
12:01 See you next week.
12:02 Thank you.
12:04 [Music]