The season is now complete, the dinners have been held, trophies awarded and Champions crowned and what an amazing season it has been. The clear highlight of course has been the perfor
mance of Devonport Strikers who captured the PS4 NPL TAS with a record number of points, won the Lakoseljac Cup and participated in two rounds of the Westfield FFA Cup before falling in extra-time to Bentleigh Greens. In addition they also triumphed in the men’s Northern Championship. A huge congratulations to Rod Andrews, Chris McKenna, Peter Savill and everyone connected with the club on a season that has set a benchmark and will go down in history.
On the women’s side we saw Olympia FC Warriors do the double by taking the Southern Championship and the pilot-PFD women’s super league and in the north Launceston City were the dominate team eclipsing Ulverstone in the Northern Championship.
Across the other competitions there were multiple clubs winning championships and this spread of successful teams again demonstrates the positive work being down by all clubs in Tasmania.
In our 16 senior competitions the following clubs experienced success:
Olympia - 4 championships
Beachside - 2 championships
Devonport – 2 championships
Riverside – 2 championships
Cygnet Town – 1 championship
Glenorchy Knights – 1 championship
Hobart United – 1 championship
Launceston City – 1 championship
Nelson – 1 championship
Northern Rangers – 1 championship
We would also like to congratulate all of the teams that experienced success across the myriad of youth competitions. More importantly to our 14,000 players we would like to thank you all for your participation and hope you enjoyed another excellent season of football in Tasmania.
FIFA LIVE YOUR GOALS:
One of the most successful football programs seen in Tasmania in years was the recently completed FIFA Live Your Goals initiative for young female players across the State. The highlight was the presence of key Matilda player Michelle Heyman who spent a week in Tasmania working with and motivating young girls to be positive and proactive around sport and encouraging them to do that through football.
A huge thank you to FFT’s Women’s Development Officer, Holly Ayton who went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that the event was a massive success. Her desire to see women’s football grow and for players to have these opportunities ensured that something very special happened across the week. Also a massive thank you to the people from various clubs who volunteered to assist with each of the sessions, without your support it would not have been such a great week.
There are now an entire group of close to 1,000 girls across the state who are freshly energised around football and FFT will now work through clubs and our Football Participation Officers to provide opportunities for further engagement at the end of this year and certainly into 2017.
TASMANIAN STATE TEAMS:
A big congratulations and thank you to the players and team staff that represented Tasmania so capably in our matches last weekend. There was something of a gap between the end of the season and these games and we really appreciate everyone’s commitment in staying fit and getting prepared.
The Seasol Bass Strait Cup opened proceedings in extremely windy conditions. The match saw Victoria win 5-0 and retain the Cup; however the efforts of our women’s team were commendable and we have a talented young squad to build on for future interstate matches. The men followed and were triumphant in their match with Melbourne City’s Youth team; taking the win with a 2-1 result courtesy of a last-second goal by Ben Hamlett.
The participation of our A-League partner Melbourne City was greatly appreciated and we are looking forward to building further on this relationship which has already seen several of our development squads visit their world-class training facilities in Melbourne.
YOUTH FOOTBALL IN 2017:
The Board of FFT have endorsed a plan from FFT’s Technical Department to have a tier of youth football in 2017 which sees the best teams and players from clubs participating against each other. This plan was presented to southern club Presidents recently and received widespread support. The core principle is to have players remain in their age group and for each club to have only one team in the highest division within those age groups to create a genuine development environment at each level. This in no way limits the overall number of teams per club or the number of players wishing to participate in youth football. Further work will be done with clubs in the early part of 2017 to establish the different competitions based on the relative standard of teams and players.
JUNIOR SUB-COMMITTEE:
The Board of FFT have established a Junior Advisory Committee which will be made up of the Presidents of the various Junior Associations around the State. This will give the associations the opportunity to make recommendations to the Board around policy issues and to provide advice on participation issues and the transition of players from junior football to youth teams within our clubs. It will also provide a forum to further advance issues and recommendations raised through the junior review which was concluded earlier this year. The intention is to hold the first meeting at the beginning of November.
FIXTURES:
Damian Gill has developed draft fixtures earlier than ever for 2017 and this seems to have been well received by clubs. These fixtures have been done for the leagues where we have certainty around the number of teams participating such as the PS4 NPL, Northern and Southern championships and the Challenge League. Once feedback is received from every club involved then we will be in a position to release the confirmed fixtures. In addition, key dates have been released to clubs as follows:
Summer Cup for PS4 NPL – 11th-25th February
Summer Cup for non-NPL – 11th February–11th March
PS4 NPL Opening Weekend – 10th-13th March
PS4 NPL Final Round – 19th August
Northern and Southern Championships Round 1 – 18th March
Northern and Southern Championships Final Round – 12th August
Lakoseljac Cup:
Qualifiers – 13th March
Round of 16 – 17th April
Quarter Finals – 29th-30th April
Semi-Finals – 20th-21st May
Cup Final – 12th June
Social Summer Cup Final – 18th March
Social Leagues Round 1 – 1st April
Social Vase Final – 12th June
Youth Cup Finals Day – 13th August
Mitsubishi Medal Dinner – 19th August