Tasmania’s best young players will go head-to-head this weekend, with the Tasmania Devils holding an intra-program showcase match between the state’s best under-17 and under-19 players.
With fixtures in both the NAB League and the NAB AFL Under-17s Championships impacted by COVID-19, the game will provide an opportunity for players in the Devils program to compete together in a competitive setting. The Devils under-19s were originally scheduled to play the Northern Knights in the NAB League this weekend and the under-17s were slated to take on Queensland, with both games postponed.
Sunday’s game will also provide AFL clubs and recruiters an extra opportunity to see Tasmania’s best prospects in action together, with film and data to be collected and distributed to all AFL clubs.
The game will be streamed live, with details to come later this week. The full details of the game are below:
Date: Sunday 1 August
Time: 11:00am
Venue: Twin Ovals
Tasmania Devils head coach, Mathew Armstrong, said: “We’re getting the groups together to play again at a very high level, and the positive is that the game is going to be filmed, all of the vision is going to be edited, coded, and sent out to all of the AFL clubs.
“The messages to me that I’m hearing from recruiters and AFL staff is that they just need to see more of the boys playing together, they haven’t seen enough of them because of COVID. This is a positive opportunity where we’re going to have all of our talented boys in the one area to have a really good hit out.
“The under-17s haven’t had a game yet – some have played in the NAB League, which is good, but the others haven’t played together just yet. For them to play in a high-quality game of footy as a team is going to give the AFL club list managers and talent scouts a first look at those boys for the future.
“If we didn’t have a game this weekend together it would be three weeks before we’ve actually seen the boys play all together and that team chemistry is really important for the program. We probably need to win two or three games coming up to play in the NAB League finals ourselves, so it’s a really important weekend coming up.”