Well, it may not be as political, expensive or as controversial as the $600 million expansion of NRL into PNG or the awarding of the World Cup to Saudi Arabia, but the AFL’s major project, the expansion over sea to Tasmania has not been without its own elements of politics, cost or division.

Amongst its least successful ventures were the forays to capture the hearts and minds of the Chinese (Port Adelaide) and New Zealanders (St Kilda), but for all its follies the AFL should be congratulated for being on a per-capita basis one of the most successful sporting organisations in the world.

The long overdue admission of our offshore neighbour into the big time is exciting.

Ever since 18-year-old Colin Mansfield Campbell starred for the Northeastern Football team against the Essendon VFA team in their tour of Tasmania in 1890, the state of Tasmania has figured prominently in the history, culture and success of Australian football

When Campbell moved to Melbourne the following year to commence his medical studies, Essendon swooped on him, and over the next four years he played in four Premierships for the club.

When the breakaway VFL was formed in 1897, he had retired, but without playing at all during the season, he came out of retirement to play in the first two of the three round robin matches to decide the first VFL premiership (which Essendon won easily), becoming part of VFL/AFL history.

Since that first premiership, over 300 players have crossed Bass Strait to become part of the great VFL/AFL competition.

Darrell John Baldock will always be remembered as the captain of St Kilda’s first (and so far only) VFL/AFL premiership, but his legend spreads much wider than that.

Like Campbell seven decades earlier, he represented Tasmania in cricket. At 20 years of age he captained the state football team and later became a champion captain/coach with four premierships at LaTrobe, a horse trainer of note and a Labor politician.

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Peter Hudson holds a number of goal-kicking records that suggest he could be ranked as the greatest full forward of all time. He averaged more goals per game that any player before or since and holds the record for the most goals in a season along with Bob Pratt (South Melbourne).

Despite suffering serious knee injuries, Hudson still remains the third-greatest goal-kicker of all time at Hawthorn.

Ian Stewart was the last of only four champions who were triple Brownlow Medal Winners. He retired in mid-1974 and was briefly talked out of it for a few games in 1975.

Royce Hart played his first game for Richmond in the opening round of 1967. By the time of his retirement in 1977, he was regarded as one of the greatest centre half forwards to have played the game.

Rodney Eade, after a 200-plus game career at Hawthorn (and briefly Brisbane Bears) turned to coaching and over the next 21 years coached Sydney, Western Bulldogs and Gold Coast for 377 games, retiring with the unwanted record of having coached the most number of games without winning a premiership.

Matthew Richardson, a champion full forward at Richmond kicked exactly 800 goals in a career that spanned 16 years and finished the second-highest goal-kicker at the Tigers, but never the leading goal-kicker in the AFL in any of his 16 years.

Other notables include Ray Groom, “Tassie” Johnston, Jeremy Howe, the Febey twins, the Gale brothers and John Greening.

Imagine what a team could be selected from Australia’s least populated state.