Tasmania has a long and distinguished history in the game of Australian Football and has supplied the VFL/AFL and AFLW competitions with some of their finest players, coaches and administrators.

There are reports of football matches in Tasmania as early as the 1850s but these are believed to have been games closer in resemblance to rugby. It wasn’t until the 1860s that 'Victorian Rules', later 'Australian Rules' were adopted.

Tasmania’s first reports of significant football matches date back to 1866 when New Town played Hobart.

Of the early clubs still in existence, the Launceston Football Club (formed in 1875), New Norfolk Football Club (1878), and North Hobart Football Club (1881) are the state’s oldest.

Football competitions steadily emerged in the state’s three regions, with intrastate matches between the north, north west and southern competitions fiercely contested. These parochial rivalries were intense, at times bitter, but they quickly evaporated when players from across the state came together to represent Tasmania.

A Tasmanian team played its first interstate match in 1887 at the MCG. The side led at half time but ultimately lost to Victoria by 27-points.

While triumphs against Victoria have been rare, Tasmania claimed perhaps its most famous win over the ‘Big V’ at Launceston’s York Park in 1960. The team, coached by Jack Metherall, was captained by former Melbourne champion Stuart Spencer and boasted some brilliant locals including Don Gale, Neil Conlan, Burnie Payne, Barry Strange, Col Moore and Murray Steele. This landmark win had its roots in the state side’s performance at the 1958 National Football Carnival where Tasmania defeated both Western Australia and South Australia.

It was during this golden period of Tasmanian football that Victorian clubs began to take an increasing interest in the exceptional talent the island state was producing. A steady stream of players were lured to the mainland to play in the VFL, several becoming household names. Four Tasmanians who relocated to Victoria during this period have been awarded legend status in the Australian Football Hall of Fame: Ian Stewart, Peter Hudson, Darrel Baldock and Royce Hart.

In 1990, when the pattern of Tasmania’s best players moving to Victorian clubs was well established, a Tasmanian State of Origin side also inflicted defeat on Victoria in front of a heaving crowd of almost 19,000 at North Hobart Oval. The side was coached by Robert Shaw and captained by Darrin Pritchard, who won three premiership medals playing with Hawthorn. The team included the Gale brothers Brendon and Michael, Paul Hudson, Doug Barwick, Alastair Lynch and Graeme Wright.

At the time, there was a growing push for a Tasmanian team in the newly formed AFL, which had supplanted the VFL at the start of that season. A show of hands in the triumphant Tasmanian dressing room saw almost every player indicate they would return to their home state if a team became a reality.

While the opportunity to join the national league ultimately took more than three decades to materialise, opportunities for female footballers came earlier with the arrival of the AFL Women’s competition in 2017. This led to a huge surge in participation numbers among women and girls in Tasmania with several going on to play at the highest level. Ellyse Gamble, Emma Humphries and Jess Wuetschner were all trailblazers in the early years of AFLW. Wuetschner ultimately tasted premiership success with the Brisbane Lions in 2021.

When Tasmania enters the AFL and AFLW competitions under the moniker of the Devils, this will not be the first time the iconic native animal has been used as the state’s football mascot. After the demise of the Statewide League that ran from 1986 to 2000, Tasmania entered a team in the second-tier Victorian Football League. The Devils went on to reach the Preliminary Final in 2004 before the club was dissolved in 2008 and a state league reinstated.

Regular AFL matches have been played in Tasmania since 2001 with Hawthorn, St. Kilda and North Melbourne all playing some of their home games in the state.