When the Ceiling is Fixed

Some familiar faces from Tasmania at Northcote FC

My son Max moved to Victoria this season. His coaching role there has given me the opportunity to visit other clubs, see different environments and for a few games at least, become a Northcote City FC supporter when Ken and I can get across to watch.

That context matters, so I want to be clear about it.

On this visit, I spent time watching a group of players train in an environment that looks and feels different to home.

Not better.
Just bigger.

Different scale.
Different exposure.
Different possibility.

Among the group were several familiar faces. Players who spent time in Tasmania. Players who trained, played and developed within clubs like South Hobart FC and Launceston City FC. Players now wearing different colours, in a different state, under brighter lights.

Last season, Max was coaching NPL in Tasmania. This season, he is coaching NPL 2 in Victoria.

That move, along with the players who followed opportunity, has drawn criticism.

Leaving Isn’t Disloyal

There is a reflex in Tasmanian football to confuse protection of competitions with protection of people.

We hear it often.
“He poached our players.”
“We found them and you stole them away.”

As if players are assets to be guarded, rather than people with ambition.
As if staying put is a moral virtue and leaving is a character flaw.

But rarely do we ask what staying actually costs the player.

Tasmania’s men’s pathway has a very clear ceiling. NPL is the top. Women’s Super League isn’t even classified as NPL yet. There is no promotion beyond it. No second tier to aspire to. No professional bridge waiting above. That reality isn’t new and it isn’t controversial. It simply is.

When the ceiling is fixed, movement is not betrayal. It is logic.

Pathways Have to Lead Somewhere

We talk constantly about pathways. We build them. We market them. We promise young players that if they work hard, commit and improve, doors will open.

Sometimes those doors are not in Tasmania.

If a player reaches the top of the local system and still has ambition, what exactly are we asking them to sacrifice to make others feel comfortable?

Are we developing footballers, or are we preserving the illusion that the system is enough simply because it exists?

As President of a club, of course I wanted players to stay. I wanted to win titles. I wanted success. But I also knew the limits of what we could offer, and often, those limits were the truth we didn’t like to say out loud.

A pathway that goes nowhere is not a pathway. It is a holding pattern.

Development Doesn’t End at the Border

The players training at Northcote did not arrive unformed.

Some came through local academies.
Some arrived via visa pathways.
Some moved from interstate or overseas and continued their development here.

All of them, in different ways, spent time inside Tasmanian clubs. They trained. They played. They contributed. They were part of the ecosystem.

Their move interstate does not erase that work. If anything, it reflects the role Tasmanian clubs play in developing, hosting and progressing players, regardless of where those players started.

When players are good enough to step into bigger leagues, stronger competitions and more visible environments, that should be recognised as success, not framed as loss.

And when we criticise coaches or clubs for enabling that movement, what we are really doing is punishing ambition for not staying small.

Bigger Budgets, Bigger Exposure

Victoria offers scale Tasmania simply cannot.

Bigger budgets.
More matches.
More eyes.
More movement between levels.

That is not an insult to Tasmanian football. It is a demographic and structural reality.

Thinking big, as a coach or as a player, is not a sin.

Pretending otherwise does not protect the game here. It only limits the people within it.

What Are We Afraid Of?

Perhaps the discomfort is not really about recruitment, or loyalty, or who signed whom.

Perhaps it is about confronting the limits of our own system.

Because once we acknowledge that players sometimes have to leave to keep growing, we are forced to admit that local success is not always the end of the story.

And that is an uncomfortable truth in a small football state.

Today I saw players who spent part of their development in Tasmanian football training in a different environment, carrying with them everything they learned while they were here.

They were not taken.

They moved because staying would have meant pretending the ceiling didn’t exist.

And perhaps the real discomfort comes from the fact that we all know it does.