Reflecting on the Football Standards of Tasmania: A Comparison of TFL and VFL/AFL

When you got to Tasmania, how did the standard of the TFL compare to the VFL at that point? That’s a really pertinent question. You’ve got to be a bit careful because you always look back on it, it was better in our days. I would say these things, two things, in the VFL, it was the VFL about to become the AFL in those days, or it was in the transition time. So the VFL was still not fully professional. Most of us, like when I was playing for Hawthorne in St Kilda, I had a job. I taught during the day and then jumped in my car and go to training at night and train. And that made you, you weren’t at the level as they are now that they’re fully professional. Also in Tasmania then, footy was a bigger thing, it was a really big thing. Sandy Bay had been really successful in the 70s in particular and a little bit early in the early 80s. So the differential between the two standards was not as high, it was not as great. And it’s massive now, it’s massive. So I would say my memories of it, it was really tough football, really, really tough footy. I’ve told this story before, Robert D.P. Adminneker was my best mate when I was playing. He came down once when I was coaching Sandy Bay and took training for us. And now I remember him afterwards, he said, oh, handy, these flanks are pretty big. They’ve been mean and nasty, this guy. And they were, and he was genuinely tough. He was a hard bugger. He was really hard. So he recognized that. So I always thought it was a very good standard then. Then what happened when I went on to coach Tasmania in the 90s, what we’ve seen is a bit of a destination point for ex-AFL players to come and establish themselves in the coaching group. Peter German, Andy Goodwin, Keenan Reynolds. Bruce Jones. Yeah, they were still at the top of the, they weren’t far off AFL level at that stage. So it was very, very good footy, it was really good footy. And then, you know, I was on the back of that, I was very lucky to coach Tassie in the 90s, from 95 up to about 1999. So I coached them in five games. We were very competitive. We had great wins over South Australia, Western Australia, the VFL. So we did very well.