There were fairways to walk, Frogmore Creek wines to taste, and real estate agents with microphones on a bus. But nobody at the Tasmania Football Club was pretending Monday's gathering at Hobart's 7 Mile Beach golf course was purely social. CEO Brendon Gale and his officials arrived in Tassie Devils polo shirts, all smiles and deliberate charm, to send one unmistakable message to the AFL's most powerful player managers: we are coming for your clients, and we mean it.
The two-day charm offensive, as reported by the Sydney Morning Herald, brought around thirty managers to Hobart for golf, dinner at the Tasman Hotel, a tour of the Macquarie Point stadium site, and a bus ride through Battery Point, Sandy Bay, Taroona and Kingston Beach to the Kingborough Sports Centre where the club's training and administration hub will eventually stand. From the opening hole to the property market spiel on that bus, every element was engineered to answer one question: why would a successful AFL player uproot their life for an unproven club in Hobart?
List manager Todd Patterson, poached from Melbourne, offered a confident answer. "I don't have a skerrick of concern that someone will come down and not enjoy the community," he told the assembled managers. "We're about to get serious. We're ready to get busy in the market." Patterson envisions a particular type of Devil: players who are, in his words, "cheeky, fun, playful, not afraid to take risks" but who also have "gravel in their veins." It is the kind of pitch that only works when the canvas is genuinely blank, and right now, Tasmania's canvas could not be more bare or more appealing to a certain kind of footballer.
The names being floated are serious ones. Collingwood's Nick Daicos, widely considered the game's best player, is on the list. His manager Paul Connors said it would be "remiss" not to hear what Tasmania has to offer, and Daicos himself has previously declined to rule out a move. Gold Coast's Matt Rowell, Richmond's 2024 number-one pick Sam Lalor, the Kangaroos' Finn O'Sullivan, and St Kilda's Alix Tauru are all in the mix. The Devils' interest in the 2024 draft class has been well canvassed. Brisbane Lions forward Logan Morris, a dual premiership player out of contract at the end of 2027, also fits the profile. Then there are the Tasmanians themselves, people like Western Bulldogs midfielder Ryley Sanders, whose future at the Bulldogs beyond 2027 is uncertain.
The structural incentives are real. Under list establishment rules, the Devils have a $5 million sign-on bonus sitting above the salary cap, the right to sign one uncontracted player from each club, seven first-round picks in the 2027 national draft, and the ability to pre-list the country's best 17-year-olds ahead of that draft. Patterson is bullish about the under-age talent pool, singling out under-16 All-Australians Axel Walsh and Baxter Zruk. He is aiming to have agreements with six to eight 17-year-olds in place by September. A father-son database is also being built, with sons of former Melbourne players Brad Green and Russell Robertson among those eligible given both men are Tasmanian-born with more than 100 AFL games to their names.
The sceptics have their points, though. SEN broadcaster Tim Watson raised doubts about the club's ability to retain young players in a city the size of Hobart once they mature and attract attention from larger markets. It is a fair concern. Hobart is a genuinely beautiful place to live, but it is not Melbourne or Brisbane. For a 22-year-old player with a young family being wooed by a club at the top of the ladder, the lifestyle pitch only goes so far. Patterson pushes back on that view, arguing that modern players are looking for purpose and commercial opportunity, not just football wins. The managers in the room, by most accounts, seemed inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
The stadium question hangs over everything. Tasmania's state parliament has approved plans for a roofed venue at Macquarie Point, but it will not be ready until around 2030. The club will play at Bellerive Stadium when the men's team enters the AFL in 2028. The Kingborough training and administration centre is not guaranteed to be finished by then either, with tenders only just called. There is a genuine risk that the gap between the pitch and the product could cost them at the critical moments of negotiation.
Gale wants a football manager in place before mid-year and a senior coach confirmed before season's end. Nathan Buckley, currently an assistant at Geelong, is the pre-eminent name in the conversation, though no decision has been made. The coaching appointment will matter enormously to established players considering the move; nobody wants to commit to an unproven list and an unknown system.
Tasmania claims six players have already sat down for informal discussions with the club, though no offers or commitments have been exchanged. That phase begins at the end of this season. Before then, more than 12,000 Tasmanians are expected to pack North Hobart Oval in less than a month to watch the Devils play Coburg in the VFL. The AFLW team debuts in May. The state's appetite is unmistakable. Whether the rest of the competition's players share it remains the only question that truly counts. Patterson, for one, is betting they will. The golf was just the opening shot.