19 teams?

[Bloods05]

The parlours state of the game in Tassie has been pointed out to you twice, and affirmed by others. Yet you're holding onto to this mistaken opinion, that all is well in the apple isle. Why a Tasmanian academy helps the Swans has also been explained.
So I've been upfront about my agenda, so how about you do likewise and explain what is the downside you see to an academy for Tassie?
PS And as for the guy mentioning Laurie Nash saying a reference to Jock McHale is silly? Pot, Kettle, Black.

Laurie Nash was one of sixteen players mentioned, many of them from recent times. Sixteen. I could have listed many more, but I thought sixteen was more than enough to illustrate the point.

I did not say all is well in footy in Tassie, I said footy would recover if they had their own team.

If people think Tassie having an academy would make people more supportive of academies in general, and the Swans' academy in particular, I think that is both mistaken and irrelevant. Mistaken because the prejudice against the Swans' academy has not changed since the advent of the Eddie McGuire fake academies, and irrelevant because it is not in itself a justification for Tassie having one. The only valid justification is if there is a need to get more kids playing footy, and I respectfully suggest there is no such need.

Please try to refrain from personalising this discussion and keep it respectful. My comment about the Jock McHale example was made because I really did think you were being deliberately flippant.

- - - Updated - - -

Stop playing silly parlour games

Indeed.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

I don't get the "Parlour Games" reference Blood Fever, anyone?

[Blood Fever]

I don't get the "Parlour Games" reference Blood Fever, anyone?

Parlours should be parlous in your post. Not a very good joke.

[707]

Come on everyone, let's respect each others opinions even if we disagree, agree to disagree on some points.

I think the advent of an AFL team is the opportunity to get footy in Tasmania on a better footing than the slippery slope they've been on in recent times. An academy would assist in that as well as hopefully provide a bigger proportion of Tasmanians in the side to negate the go home factor, which will be a factor.

[barry]

Any addition of teams, dilutes the talent pool and money per club. Making each club smaller.

This can be both good (small clubs have a lower bench mark for survival) and bad ( talent and cash thinner).

[Ludwig]

The number of teams in a sporting competition should never be a prime number. It's very unsettling. I sounds like a mistake made by fools.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Parlours should be parlous in your post. Not a very good joke.

Well Bloods05 liked it, so that's something.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Any addition of teams, dilutes the talent pool and money per club. Making each club smaller.

This can be both good (small clubs have a lower bench mark for survival) and bad ( talent and cash thinner).

I agree, although I see the dilution argument as the reason to increase the talent pool, more than a reason to hold off on increasing the number of teams, which I understand helps a lot with TV revenue.

So far the northern academies have been by far the best way of increasing the talent pool. Maybe the NGA's will too, in time, at the moment they look to be simply a way of circumventing the draft.

[Bloods05]

I agree, although I see the dilution argument as the reason to increase the talent pool, more than a reason to hold off on increasing the number of teams, which I understand helps a lot with TV revenue.

So far the northern academies have been by far the best way of increasing the talent pool. Maybe the NGA's will too, in time, at the moment they look to be simply a way of circumventing the draft.

I would put a Tasmanian academy in the latter category.

[bloodspirit]

I sounds like a mistake made by fools.

This ^^^

[Aprilbr]

Historically, Tasmania has produced a large number of players of the very highest calibre. It is only in recent decades, for a variety of reasons that would I'm sure be adequately addressed by the advent of a local AFL team, that development of local talent has stalled somewhat. A state that can produce Laurie Nash, Darrell Baldock, Peter Hudson, Ian Stewart, Royce Hart, Rodney Eade, Matthew Richardson, Alistair Lynch, Brent Crosswell, Daryn Cresswell, Paul Williams, John Greening, Jack Riewoldt, Ben Brown, Toby Nankervis and Grant Birchall has no need of special assistance.

Interesting point to raise champion players from many decades past, Bloods05, but let's focus on this century given that seems a more relevant period to the contemporary debate?

Jack Riewoldt, Ben Brown, Toby Nankervis and Grant Birchall were the only ones mentioned from the list that relate to the past 22 years, so that's 4 players in 22 years. NSW and Queensland look like veritable football factories in comparison to that record.

So, if you argue that there is "no need of special assistance" for Tassie based on the Tassie record, then we should immediately disband the Academies in Sydney because NSW is certainly producing a bigger bounty of players that 4 in 22 years. Am I missing something?

[liz]

Interesting point to raise champion players from many decades past, Bloods05, but let's focus on this century given that seems a more relevant period to the contemporary debate?

Jack Riewoldt, Ben Brown, Toby Nankervis and Grant Birchall were the only ones mentioned from the list that relate to the past 22 years, so that's 4 players in 22 years. NSW and Queensland look like veritable football factories in comparison to that record.

So, if you argue that there is "no need of special assistance" for Tassie based on the Tassie record, then we should immediately disband the Academies in Sydney because NSW is certainly producing a bigger bounty of players that 4 in 22 years. Am I missing something?

Yeah, I'm sick of reading that the Swans (and Giants) don't need academies because NSW produced the likes of Bunton, Longmire, Maclure, Carey, several Danihers, Kelly, Crawford, Hayes, McVeigh...

[KTigers]

You would think that if states with 60% of the country's population are only producing 10% of AFL footballers, then academies
in NSW, Qld, Tas and the NT are just the starting point. Most people in Tasmania now weren't born until after the heyday of
footy there had waned considerably, I'm not convinced they are going to recreate the glory years just because the state has
an AFL team.

[Ruck'n'Roll]

Yeah, I'm sick of reading that the Swans (and Giants) don't need academies because NSW produced the likes of Bunton, Longmire, Maclure, Carey, several Danihers, Kelly, Crawford, Hayes, McVeigh...

Don't forget Jock McHale

[Bloods05]

Interesting point to raise champion players from many decades past, Bloods05, but let's focus on this century given that seems a more relevant period to the contemporary debate?

Jack Riewoldt, Ben Brown, Toby Nankervis and Grant Birchall were the only ones mentioned from the list that relate to the past 22 years, so that's 4 players in 22 years. NSW and Queensland look like veritable football factories in comparison to that record.

So, if you argue that there is "no need of special assistance" for Tassie based on the Tassie record, then we should immediately disband the Academies in Sydney because NSW is certainly producing a bigger bounty of players that 4 in 22 years. Am I missing something?

Yes. You're missing the fact that Tasmania has a long and rich football tradition, and that it wouldn't take much to revive it. The northern states, by contrast, are trying to establish something new, and need a lot of assistance to achieve that.