Tasmania's NPL State Squad Is Picked. So What Have We Ended Up With?
I've been asking questions about Tasmania's return to interstate representative football since it was announced. Now we finally have the team.
I have already written about this twice.
So perhaps I should see it through.
When Football Tasmania first announced that a Tasmanian NPL representative side would travel to Perth to play Western Australia, I asked a fairly simple question:
Why?
I wasn't opposed to representative football. I wasn't opposed to giving good players another opportunity.
I just wanted to understand what we were trying to achieve.
Was it development? Talent identification? Benchmarking? Marketing? State pride? Pathways?
And, perhaps most importantly, what would success actually look like?
I wrote about that in Representative Football Is Back. But Why?
Read: Representative Football Is Back. But Why?
Then more information arrived.
And I discovered the opt-in box.
Players selected for Tasmania would be invited to opt in or opt out of a fully funded trip to Perth: flights, accommodation and meals covered.
Having spent years watching football families opt into invoices for representative opportunities, I found that rather entertaining.
So I wrote about that too.
Now we have reached the next stage.
We have a team.
And inevitably, I have more questions.
First there were 11
On August 10, Football Tasmania announced its 2026 NPL Team of the Year.
The process was clear.
NPL coaches voted for players by position and weren't permitted to vote for players from their own club.
Eleven players emerged:
Rex Maddock, Joel Badger, Joshua Tollervey, Ryan Lynch, Samuel Berezansky, Kobe Kemp, Eli Wright, Musashi Kokubo, Jacob Lancaster, Brady Last and Nicholas O'Connell.
Jon Fenech was also voted NPL Coach of the Year by his peers.
All perfectly straightforward.
Although Football Tasmania did manage to remove a little suspense from its own Awards Night on September 12.
The Team of the Year will receive their commemorative strips there and Jon will presumably receive recognition as Coach of the Year.
We were told who they all were on August 10.
Perhaps everyone can practise looking surprised.
Then came the State squad
The Team of the Year announcement made clear that those 11 players would form the "backbone" of the State team, with the full squad announced later.
Five more players subsequently appeared:
Ivan Jolivet, Devonport Strikers Eli Luttmer, Kingborough Lions Adam Gorrie, South Hobart Hugo Schwarz, Kingborough Lions Thomas Cordell, South Hobart
And initially I wondered who had selected them.
Then I went back to something I had already written.
Turns out I had the answer sitting in my own blog.
The information sent to NPL clubs earlier in the year explained that after the coaches' vote, Football Tasmania would confirm the starting eleven, select the additional players and appoint the coaching staff.
"Football Tasmania will then confirm a starting eleven, select additional players to complete a squad of seventeen and appoint coaching staff."
So that answers one question.
Football Tasmania was always going to complete the squad.
But it creates another small curiosity.
The original information said the additional selections would create a squad of 17.
The squad announced this week contains 16.
Perhaps someone opted out.
Remember the box?
Perhaps there was a late withdrawal.
Perhaps the plan simply changed.
Again, probably a perfectly simple explanation.
What about the staff?
Jon Fenech was voted Coach of the Year by his peers and therefore takes charge of Tasmania.
Joining him are assistant coach Matt Hess, goalkeeping coach Alex Tatnell, team/kit manager Cameron Ellis and physiotherapist Greg Downes.
There are familiar faces there for Jon.
Tatnell, Ellis and Downes are part of his Kingborough environment, while Hess has a long association with Kingborough as a former player and coach, although he is now coaching Taroona's Championship side.
That makes sense to me.
This isn't a team preparing together for six months.
It's a representative squad travelling interstate for a match.
Give the coach people he knows and trusts and get on with it.
Pick the best. Please.
Then there is the distribution of the players.
It is striking.
South Hobart, 7 Kingborough, 5 Devonport, 3 Clarence Zebras, 1
Six NPL clubs have nobody.
Twelve of the 16 players come from South Hobart and Kingborough.
Fifteen come from three clubs.
Tasmanian representative selections have, at times in the past, included something of a geographical nod.
Not this time.
And I'm pleased.
If we're going all the way to Western Australia to play their best NPL players, pick our best players.
I don't want somebody selected because the North needs a representative.
I don't want every NPL club to get a participation prize.
If the best available 16 contains seven South Hobart players, take seven.
If it contains five Kingborough players, take five.
The test of this selection shouldn't be whether the map of Tasmania has been adequately represented.
It should be whether this is the strongest team we can put on the park.
Although there is a little irony
When this concept was originally announced, one of the arguments for it was that it would provide a national opportunity for leading NPL players who weren't already getting one.
Kingborough had the Australia Cup.
The NPL champion would have the Australian Championship.
The State side offered something to everybody else.
Then South Hobart won the NPL.
And now look at the State squad.
South Hobart, seven.
Kingborough, five.
The two clubs already heading into national competition supply 12 of Tasmania's 16 players.
Everybody else supplies four.
Football does enjoy ruining a perfectly good theory.
But again, if they're the best players, take them.
State of Origin?
I'm still amused by this description.
State of Origin.
It sounds magnificent.
I'm just not entirely sure what anyone's "origin" has to do with it.
This isn't rugby league eligibility.
Nobody is checking where Musashi Kokubo played his first game of football to determine which state can claim him.
It's really a Tasmanian NPL representative team playing a Western Australian NPL representative team.
And that's fine.
Actually, I prefer it.
If you're playing in our league, you're eligible and you're good enough, pull on the Tasmanian shirt.
State of Origin looks better on the poster.
I'll call it Tasmania.
Have I changed my mind?
This is probably the question I should answer after writing two fairly sceptical articles about the whole exercise.
A little.
I still don't know what this game ultimately achieves.
I still wonder whether the money involved might produce a greater benefit elsewhere in Tasmanian football.
I still wonder why, if fully funded interstate representative football is worthwhile for our best men, there isn't an equivalent opportunity for our best women.
And I still think Victoria or New South Wales might provide a more meaningful football benchmark for Tasmania than Western Australia.
Those questions haven't disappeared.
But now that we're doing it?
Do it properly.
Pick the best players.
Take a strong coaching team.
Treat representing Tasmania as something important.
Go to Perth intending to win.
And then, when everyone comes home, tell us what we learned.
Because perhaps that's where my original question eventually gets answered.
Not:
Did Tasmania beat Western Australia?
But:
Was Tasmanian football better for having done it?
I'll be interested to find out.
And in the meantime?
Go Tasmania.