"Buggered it up": Tigers legend's stinging attack on Tassie "shambles"

Richmond legend and Tassie AFL great Royce Hart has unleashed a stinging attack on the political heads trying to kill the state’s dream of having its own football team describing the current situation as a total shambles.

The 77-year-old Hall of Famer, who has long been passionate about seeing a club formed on the island, said the politicians are overlooking the valuable social and economic benefits the Devils would bring.

“There are a lot of people making decisions who are not qualified to do it,” Hart told the Mercury.

“Not many of them would know anything about football, apart from Peter Gutwein, he was the shining light, but he’s gone.

“I’d say to the politicians get some decent advice, because you’ve buggered it up so far.

“We’ve been chasing after our own team for so long and now we are about to lose it. “They need to think about the kids coming through because they need something to aspire to.

“At the moment it’s a shambles.”

11am

Proud Tasmanian and Hawthorn legend Rodney Eade shared a message to those barricading progression in his home state and explained why using stadiums at Bellerive and Launceston is not a viable solution.

“There’s stadiums at Bellerive and Launceston, but they’re not at the level needed for the club to generate funds, and survive and thrive,” he told the Mercury.

“The (AFL club) presidents vote, and they’ve made the condition of having a stadium because they want financial viability. The only way to do that is to have a really good stadium and if the presidents don’t see that, they’ll vote against it.

“People who want a team but no stadium, well they’ve got to get their heads out of their backsides and realise it won’t be there.”

“There’s a lot of people in Tasmania who are anti-growth. They don’t want Tasmania to improve or grow with the world.

“I can only see benefits with this. I don’t know what their negativity about it is and they keep changing their reasons why.

“I’m astounded by it, I just can’t see why they can’t see the benefits of it for all Tasmanians."

9:02am

If you're not clear just how much this week has impacted Tasmanians then you only need to listen to Paine and Costelloe's interview with Independent MP and SFL President David O'Byrne who became quite emotional just two words into his time on air.

Asked for his thoughts on the political turmoil of the last few days, this is what he had to say:

"You go into politics to try and make a difference. I got elected to try and make government work. I wanted to work hard on things I felt passionate about.

"It's upsetting, we’ve ended up here. Trying to make sense of the last 24 hours I feel embarrassed to be a Tasmanian at times. We are world class at kicking ourselves in the shin.

"There's plenty of time to move no confidence motions but the timing of this is awful.

"I thought the tactic was ill-thought out from him (Dean Winter) to deflect pressure on him. He’s dropped a match on a very dry bit of land and hasn’t got a fire extinguisher. It’s blown up in his face.

"The motion was not about stopping the budget or a change of government. It’s purely to get rid of Rockfliff and have a new leader of the liberal party. That’s not a tactic that’s a disaster for the state.

"In footy terms it was a nasty behind play incident."

LISTEN BELOW

8:28am

Three options for Tassie moving forward according to Brent Costelloe (warning this is politically heavy)

-Both Liberal and Labor need to stand firm on their support for the stadium. They will need the support of the crossbench to form government, they need to remain strong and not give up their support of the stadium to gain the independents' support.

-Should the federal government do more? Can they be the white knight and save this? They're supporting the NRL PNG team, can they put some more money into the stadium?

-Don't vote in as many independents. The more Liberal and Labor members there are, the easier it will be to get support for the stadium.

Tim Paine launched a passionate response to what has happened in his state this week accusing Tasmanians of self-sabotaging the evolution and progression of the island.

"I know people say its only sport its only footy, and it is, but for people this stadium and this team means so much more than just the football," Paine said on SEN Tassie Breakfast.

"Tassie has for a long time been the laughing stock for the other states because of our inability to get stuff done. When I was playing cricket people would say ‘oh you’re heading back to 'Slowbart', nothing ever happens’, it’s the same as it was 10 years ago, and we keep proving people right.

"It’s embarrassing when you’re involved in national or international sports and businesses and you go to carnivals or Tests and people just continually s--tcan us. They talk down to us and we continually prove them right.

"When you speak to people on the mainland they say ‘we know it won’t happen, we know that Tasmania will find a way to stuff this up’.

"It is staggering that we do this to ourselves we are self-sabotaging state.

"I’m as proud as anyone to be a Tasmanian but at times it is embarrassing.

"I was with Chris Fagan the last few days at the football club, everyone you speak to, they ask if its gonna happen. Even Fages, a proud Tasmanian, you could see in his face and the look in his eye, he was shocked that once again e have gone out of our way to stuff something up that would be great for our state.

"It’s a doomsday scenario but what if the AFL revokes the licence?"

Tassie Breakfast with Tim Paine & Brent Costelloe – Mondays and Fridays 7am – 9am on SEN Tassie - 1629am Hobart, SENTrack 1611am Launceston & Devonport and the SEN App