Southern Football League (Tas) Thread

[The Majestic]

Now that it is 2017, I figured the SFL needs a thread for the up coming season, I will throw up a few photos from the SFL throughout the season.

So once they are known the fixtures will be published here in the original post, and hopefully some list changes will be added once we know them all as well.

 

[The Majestic]

New Norfolk have since added Nathan Ross, Josh Hill, Zeke Gardam, and Simon Crane to their new recruits.

2017 fixture is being finalised as well, should be out soon hopefully.

 

[The Majestic]

Josh Grant is now back at Claremont after a season with Leeton.

Harry Parker, and Callen Daly are now at Glenorchy.

 

[Whowants2know]

Luke Graham has walked out of Kingborough and gone to Huonville. Only a young player but was Kingborough leading goalkicker in there 1st season, will go very well in the SFL

 

[Ozguy]

Josh Grant is now back at Claremont after a season with Leeton.

Harry Parker, and Callen Daly are now at Glenorchy.

Callen for Rookie of the Year

 

[The Majestic]

Callen for Rookie of the Year

He'd certainly be a good asset for Glenorchy if he plays like he did in the games I saw last year, though the Clearances page says his clearance was denied but an article said Glenorchy had signed him. Chris McKnight is back at Glenorchy after a spell at Brighton. Dylan Grant has also joined Glenorchy.

Chris Novy has gone to Cairns.

New Norfolk have Caden Wilson, Sam Hall returning as well as getting Allan Matcham from Brighton.

Brighton has also lost Joshua Davie.

 

[Kingpin]

Lauderdale and Lindisfarne just completed a six quarter practice match down at Lauderdale ran out convincing 105 point winners, 24.23 (167) to 10.2 (62) over the Two Blues.
Any other practice matches taking place?
I think it's next Thursday night Hobart take on DOSA in the Tye Bennett Memorial Match at Abbotsfield Park, Claremont.

 

[The Majestic]

Claremont and University in Friday Night.

There were no scores at the Claremont/DOSA practice match, but I think Claremont won in the end after a tight first half.

Photos from that one are here Practice Match - Claremont vs DOSA

I am hoping to get to the one Thursday night at Abbotsfield Park as well.

 

[Kingpin]

The Tye Bennett Memorial Game at Abbotsfield Park there was some conjecture over the final score due to there being no scoreboard and no goal umpire at one end, a last effort kick at goal by DOSA with the scores at 9.8 (62) apiece was either marked on the line or just over (nobody could tell with no official at that end).
Either way, the Tigers are claiming it as a loss.

I hear that the SFL Lightning Premiership Cup pre-season comp has been canned due to the lack of availability of the Pontville Oval.
Apparently there were, like, 600 campervans all parked up there all over the place the other day. Only a few weeks out from the start of the season and no publicity about the league again. Bring back Gary Williamson or heaven forbid even old Tarfingers Morrison!
At least they publicised the SFL!

 

[Kingpin]

Heard a little whisper last night that Kingborough are looking at putting a team in the SFL again next year.
Not sure how that'll go given previous examples of clubs splitting their lists into two different competitions (ie: Burnie Dockers and Devonport in the NWFL and TSL, Glenorchy in the SFL and TSL, North Launceston and East Launceston/South Launceston in the old NTFA and TFL Statewide League in 1986, the Lauderdale reserves/Triabunna, East Coast Bombers setup) and all failing due to being over stretched.

 

[The Majestic]

That will be interesting if that does happen.

I heard about the canning of the pre-season comp, sad, they could have held it elsewhere there were other grounds.

 

[Kingpin]

Well the first two rounds have been completed and as expected, New Norfolk are sitting on top at 2-0 with wins of 118 and 103 points.
Last season's premiers Claremont have two wins so far, albeit unspectacular, with a scrappy 55 point victory over bottom placed Sorell and a 16 point win over Cygnet.
Huonville Lions have had a good come-from-behind win at home to Hobart and a scrambly win over Sorell in a slugfest at Pembroke Park.
Dodges Ferry have improved over the Summer and won handsomely over Cygnet on the opening day and a 3 point loss in the closing moments to Lindisfarne.
Lindisfarne with a number of recruits including former Hobart and Lauderdale TSL forward, Michael Cassidy, had the bye on opening day and came from behind to snatch a 3-point win over Dodges Ferry on Good Friday.
At the other end of the table, last season's elimination finalist, Hobart, have had a very poor start under new coach Mark Beck after a promising pre-season, being rundown by Huonville Lions at Huonville by 12 points, kicking themselves out of a probable victory before being comprehensively smashed by New Norfolk at the TCA on Good Friday, the Tigers were fortunate that the final margin was only 103 points and not closer to 150 given the horrible performance they put up on the day.
Cygnet, with the loss of Jason Laycock and Gavin Quirk to New Norfolk have struggled so far with losses of 47 points at Dodges Ferry and 16 points at home to Claremont.
Sorell under new coach Michael "Jock" McGregor have begun the season winless and appear to be struggling for cattle on the park but have fought hard in both games, going down by 55 points to Claremont and 22 points to Huonville Lions.
Brighton's only match thus far saw them front up to Boyer and face New Norfolk and leave with a 117 point loss.

 

[Gersman]

Looks like Norfik have just about got a lock on the flag already, the Farne will never be favourites until they win a flag again or else they'll be seen as pretenders.
The Mont lack firepower up front so far, Dodges with about six blokes from Lauderdale look good.
Jock's got no cattle down at Sorell, Brighton are a one man team, take out that little Callen Daly and they're nothing.
Hobart are absolutely putrid, three white flag efforts in a row, averaging four goals a game at home, new coach must be wondering what the heck he's taken on here, they looked to have turned the corner last year under Woodduck, odd move to flick the coach aftrr getting them into the five.
Heard a whisper that Hobart are in financial strife too, could be a factor.
Huonville good at home, flaky on the road, might sneak into the five but won't beat the top sides.
Very boring comp this year again, lopsided as AF and nothing much in the papers.

 

[Kingpin]

I wouldn't say that Hobart are in financial strife as such, I think it's more the fact that, like most clubs, money is pretty tight and the fact that the senior side has been smashed by a total of 353 points in its last three starts and has looked very ordinary all season, it makes it difficult to get supporters through the gate to generate enough revenue to keep things running, we don't have anywhere near the support we had even in the TSL unfortunately.
The match against Lindisfarne on Saturday drew a very poor attendance, I would venture to say there were more players from the clubs' three teams and their support staff than there were paying spectators and hence very little money was made through the bars and kiosk on the day.
Adding to that, we host Brighton on Saturday which are also a fairly low drawing side and like us, are winless. We then have to wait five weeks until we play a home game again so as you can imagine, it makes the task of raising of funds to keep things ticking over very difficult.
As for the coaching, I feel very sorry for Mark Beck and Heath Neville as they put in so much work over the summer but it hasn't happened at all on the field. We chronically lack height and bigger bodies and lack a decent target up forward to take marks. Losing Jarratt Horton overseas to Scotland has been a big loss too.
One thing going well for Hobart is the Under 18s side sitting undefeated and on top at the moment and playing great footy.

 

[Kingpin]

SFL smashed in their rep game by the NWFL by 88 points at Ulverstone yesterday, 13.20 (98) to 1.4 (10).
24 of the 43-man squad named to play in the match opted out.
Is it time to end rep games if it's not made cumpulsory?
Crowds, including yesterday's match have been abysmal at rep games for the past twenty years and there seems to be little to no interest from the general public or a sizeable section of the playing members of the SFL in recent years.

 

[bakerman]

I wouldn't say that Hobart are in financial strife as such, I think it's more the fact that, like most clubs, money is pretty tight and the fact that the senior side has been smashed by a total of 353 points in its last three starts and has looked very ordinary all season, it makes it difficult to get supporters through the gate to generate enough revenue to keep things running, we don't have anywhere near the support we had even in the TSL unfortunately.
The match against Lindisfarne on Saturday drew a very poor attendance, I would venture to say there were more players from the clubs' three teams and their support staff than there were paying spectators and hence very little money was made through the bars and kiosk on the day.
Adding to that, we host Brighton on Saturday which are also a fairly low drawing side and like us, are winless. We then have to wait five weeks until we play a home game again so as you can imagine, it makes the task of raising of funds to keep things ticking over very difficult.
As for the coaching, I feel very sorry for Mark Beck and Heath Neville as they put in so much work over the summer but it hasn't happened at all on the field. We chronically lack height and bigger bodies and lack a decent target up forward to take marks. Losing Jarratt Horton overseas to Scotland has been a big loss too.
One thing going well for Hobart is the Under 18s side sitting undefeated and on top at the moment and playing great footy.

Unfortunately Hobart are a joke at the moment. You can't feel sorry for Mark Beck, he is part of the issue. He has lost the players by trying to be a TSL coach and over complicating things. I hear 4 or more senior players has quit the club due to him and others didn't return due to him. I've notice 1 player has recently gone to Huonville. Mark Beck couldn't get into the senior team last year, now he's coaching and playing. The way they are going, Hobart will die as a club, nobody wants that but the committee made a bad choice for the coach.

 

[Whowants2know]

A couple players told me that had they lost to Brighton a couple of weeks ago, the coach was going to sacked.
Well lucky they won by 6 points.

 

[bakerman]

A couple players told me that had they lost to Brighton a couple of weeks ago, the coach was going to sacked.
Well lucky they won by 6 points.

Maybe he should be sacked and they should start again. Will be a rocky year for the tigers.

 

[bakerman]

Looks like Norfik have just about got a lock on the flag already, the Farne will never be favourites until they win a flag again or else they'll be seen as pretenders.
The Mont lack firepower up front so far, Dodges with about six blokes from Lauderdale look good.
Jock's got no cattle down at Sorell, Brighton are a one man team, take out that little Callen Daly and they're nothing.
Hobart are absolutely putrid, three white flag efforts in a row, averaging four goals a game at home, new coach must be wondering what the heck he's taken on here, they looked to have turned the corner last year under Woodduck, odd move to flick the coach aftrr getting them into the five.
Heard a whisper that Hobart are in financial strife too, could be a factor.
Huonville good at home, flaky on the road, might sneak into the five but won't beat the top sides.
Very boring comp this year again, lopsided as AF and nothing much in the papers.

Huonville haven't won on the road but the effort on the weekend against Dodges, at Dodges was commendable.

 

[JM71]

Anyone got any predictions for finals?

For mine New Norfolk will get the chocolates again, beating Lindisfarne.

Dodges and Cygnet are too far off the mark, Claremont could beat Lindisfarne on their day but doubt they'd challenge NN

 

[Whowants2know]

Anyone got any predictions for finals?

For mine New Norfolk will get the chocolates again, beating Lindisfarne.

Dodges and Cygnet are too far off the mark, Claremont could beat Lindisfarne on their day but doubt they'd challenge NN

Unfortunately the competition is lop sided.
You have New Norfolk and Lindisfarne a gap to Claremont then a big big gap to Dodges and Cygnet.
But the gap between the top 3 and the bottom is really really large.

 

[Kingpin]

Agreed. This whole competition's been allowed to descend into a continuous one/two horse race for the past several years (last year aside) and it's pretty easy to see why the media and public have become generally very disinterested in the SFL.
One or two matches aside, from what I've seen this season the crowds have been absolutely deplorable.
New Norfolk should go on to take out the flag, Lindisfarne should make it to play New Norfolk on the big day but will fall short once again.
Claremont are unimpressive. Dodges Ferry can turn it on on their day but are too inconsistent, Cygnet at full strength will be a handful but it remains to be seen what Cygnet team turns up on the day: if they have a stack of players out they'll be easily swept aside like what Hobart did to them at the TCA the other week.
The teams outside the five, it's a real worry.
Huonville Lions are a competitive side at Huonville but struggle away from there.
Hobart have fallen a long way down after making the finals last year, the skill level is seriously poor and they'll need to do some good recruiting next year to even come close to playing finals.
Brighton have fallen away badly as a club in recent years and struggle to attract good players, haven't made a grand final in 18 years, not won a flag since 1998 and don't look like winning one either. Used to be a very good club many years ago.
Sorell are really struggling, won one game this season, the fact that it took their almost 50 year old coach (Jock McGregor) to lace up the boots and kick five goals to win that game for them says they're a long way off the pace for some time ahead, unfortunately.
The one thing I find very disappointing with the SFL is the lack of leadership.
Where are the executives? Who are they?
They don't go to any matches, never in the media talking up the SFL, never promote the league on facebook or anything of that nature.
It's as if the whole competition is running on auto-pilot and to be frank, I can't see any improvement in the SFL taking place in the near future unless there's a change in leadership and they start promoting it and trying to make it a compeition worth playing and following. It's certainly fallen away very badly since the late 90s and 2000s.

 

[The Majestic]

I am not sure the issue with the SFL media and promoting on Facebook and the media, once Ben Harrison went so did a lot of the work around the SFL, Tony Gibson took part of the roles that Ben Harrison had in the SFL, then the media department were meant to take the others. There have been two people hired to do media for the SFL and both have not done anything all season.

Huonville was really struggling for players the last few games, I was doing some work at their game against Claremont and New Norfolk and was hearing that they had a lot of injuries that they couldn't field their colts side I believe they have forfeited most of their remaining colts games.

Brighton were down a few players as well it seems, so were Claremont, so much so they had to coax some out of retirement to help them with the remaining games. Mark Kameric, Darren Simpson and Adrian Robinson all lined up in the remaining games. Robbo may see no further action this season, he and a Hobart player I believe were reported, or just one of them. Either way it was getting very nasty during the reserves game.

Finals I think will be...

Lindisfarne over Claremont
Cygnet over Dodges Ferry

Week Two
Claremont over Cygnet
New Norfolk over Lindisfarne

Week Three
Lindisfarne over Claremont

Week Four
New Norfolk over Lindisfarne

Colts I think Hobart will take that out, no one has really come close to them all season, New Norfolk will take out the ressies as well, I cannot see anyone beating them.

 

[Kingpin]

Spot on re: Ben Harrison. He was very good.
I believe he got rather frustrated at the lack of help he was getting and chucked it in at the end of last season.
Re: Facebook promotion, they've hired two people to do this work and the whole season they have done absolutely zero. Diddly squat.
The fact that they've left everything up to you to do is a disgrace: have they hired you or do they expect you to do it for nothing?
Gary Williamson was a great promoter of the competition back in the 2000s and even, heaven forbid, "Huon Clubs" Morrison was good in comparison to now. It's a shame.

 

[The Majestic]

I am honestly not sure what the go is going to be regarding payment if there was ever going to be any, or not. Harrison organised payment for the work I did for the finals, including the posting of SFL scores from the venues I was at, he went to the other games and was posting scores.

Unfortunately I am not sure what is going to happen with the SFL, need someone to take charge and do some promoting around the league, need clubs to do some of the work as well. I have had so many suggestions of little features for the media side of the SFL, most have fallen on deaf ears, sadly.

So I am not even sure.