sport, local-sport,

Remember when teams were being picked in the school playground, there was one kid who always seemed to be the last chosen. All the cool, sporty dudes had been snapped up early and were already choosing which position they would like to play while the unpopular runt was left standing alone, bottom lip quivering, tear ducts battling to hold back the tide, trying in vain to pretend it didn’t bother him. Or her. Imagine the life-long psychological impact such heartless rejection could have on a soul. Well that’s us, that is. Tasmania is that kid in the Australian playground. Within the last month, the state has been spurned by the “national” soccer and baseball competitions with football set to follow. Basketball is also lining up to continue the neglect, like bullies taking their turn to put the boot in. All four sports claim to run national competitions, lovably known as the ABL, AFL, NBL and A-League. Any competition acronym that includes an ‘A’ or ‘N’ purporting to stand for ‘Australian’ or ‘National’ but devoid of representation from one of the country’s six states should face prosecution under trade description legislation. Any subsequent punishment should be doubled if that competition already includes New Zealand teams. Ironically, one of the few competitions that could call itself national – cricket’s Big Bash League – prefers instead to sound like a giant party. But back to that lonely outcast in the playground. What if that kid was actually sportier than the big-headed big boys realised? The world’s most viewed annual sporting event will begin on Saturday with Richie Porte among the favourites to win. Two Tasmanians were in the Kookaburras squad that won Australia’s 15th Champions Trophy on Sunday. It was Eddie Ockenden’s seventh personal victory in the competition. In contrast, hockey giants India, Great Britain and Spain have one title between them. Tasmanian athletes won 12 gold and four silver medals at the Commonwealth Games in April. That’s more gold medals than Wales, Scotland, Nigeria, Jamaica or Malaysia. Tasmania (population half a million): 12 gold. Pakistan (population 193 million): one gold. On the rare occasions when national sporting competitions do allow Tasmanian involvement, the annoying upstarts have a habit of winning them, which perhaps explains why others are reluctant to make the same mistake. The Tasmanian Tigers have won the Sheffield Shield in 2007, ’11 and ’13 (and made five other finals) and the one-day cup competition in 1979, 2008 and ’10 while the team with the same name won the Australian Hockey League in 2014 (which was also one of four times that Ockenden was player of the tournament). On Sunday, the Tasmanian Magpies claimed the state’s first Australian Netball League title, with seven Tasmanian-born players. In seven editions of the Big Bash League, the Hurricanes have twice made the final. Three of the 11 cricket World Cups have seen Tasmanians named player of the final (David Boon in 1987, Ricky Ponting in 2003 and James Faulkner in 2015). Approximately 30 Tasmanians are on the books of AFL clubs and the state has produced four AFL Hall of Fame legends, but the league’s chief executive Gillon McLachlan will fly to Hobart on Tuesday to repeat the mantra that the state can’t have its own team. It used to be because there wasn’t enough financial clout – until big money companies like Mars jumped on board. Then it was the North-South divide – until the North and South were united by the AFL’s arrogant and dismissive attitude. This time it will probably be the dire lack of a ‘Q’ in our state’s name or some other equally plausible explanation. Instead we will get fobbed off with some patronising consolation prize like VFL inclusion while fly-in Victorian clubs retain their intravenous link to Tasmanian taxpayer funding. Which leads to the real reasoning behind all this. Tasmania’s rejection by national sporting competitions has nothing to do with sport. It has everything to do with money. This is why the AFL targeted well-populated footy deserts like Gold Coast and western Sydney rather than a Tasmanian oasis and why Football Federation Australia sought to “fish where the fish were” when seeking new A-League teams. Passion and performance, it seems, will always lose out to population. But that kid in the playground could still be full of surprises. Go Richie.

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