Southern Touch hosts 2023 Tasmanian State Cup in difficult conditions

The 2023 Tasmanian State Cup has been run and won following the senior event in Hobart this weekend.

Following weeks of pristine weather conditions, like a spell being cast the temperature dropped and persistent showers bedeviled the event from the arrival of staff and participants on Saturday morning. The difficult conditions had little effect on the entertainment factor though, as participating teams put some wonderful touch football on display for those who braved the cold and wet to watch.

There were only three divisions running at this year's event, with a disappointing drop in participant teams from the north of the state. The Men's 30s division saw two teams from Southern Touch play a friendly-spirited, but entertaining best of three series, with the A team from ST taking out the division 2-0 with the third game of the series ending in a thrilling draw. The player of the series was Jesse Cooper.

The Women's Open teams played four games of a best of five series, and in a much closer result than in recent history Launceston TA's team ran out winners three games to ST's one. It's been more than five years since ST have won a game against LTA, and the other games in the series were much closer than in the last few years. Amelia Bransden from LTA was the Player of the Series, and looked dangerous every time she had the ball in her hands.

The Mixed Open division had six teams participating, and was a very even affair across the board. The last round of games decided who went through to the final after LTA Blue and ST A had played out an exciting 9-9 draw on Saturday, with ST A going through to the final on points differential before going down to the TFT Development team 8-4 in the last game of the weekend. Lily Harper and Archie Hurd from TFT Dev were adjudged the Players of the Final.

The Senior State Cup Trophy was awarded to Southern Touch, winning three out of five divisions (having nominated teams in Men's Open and Women's 30s, they were declared uncontested winners). The overall State Cup for 2023 was awarded to Launceston Touch Association following their dominant performance in the Junior State Cup earlier in the year. The final overall standings were:
LTA 302 points, ST 162 points, DTA 55 points.

The Referee of the Tournament was awarded to Kodey Prendergast. National Referee Panel member Ken Golden presented an upgrade to level 2 for Mikayla Aziz, and upgrades to level 3 for Harvey Hurd, Ryan Milner, Meg Sauerwald and Lucas Skelly.

The next event on our schedule is the 2024 Junior State Cup, to be held in Devonport on 17-18 Feb, 2024.