TASMANIA'S inaugural chief executive Brendon Gale says the Devils' first coach will need to "spruik the gospel" of the fledgling club as he starts to plan key appointments.
Ahead of being officially unveiled in Tasmania on Thursday, Gale spoke exclusively to AFL.com.au about his new role having spent 15 years at the helm of Richmond.
He is set to travel around the state in coming weeks to build upon the work set up in the past two years since Tasmania was granted its conditional AFL licence as the League's 19th team.
In a wide-ranging interview after a three-month break following his finish at the Tigers, Gale said he had already started to consider the traits required as the club's first senior coach ahead of its 2028 start in the AFL, using Scott Roth, the coach of Tasmania's NBL side JackJumpers, as inspiration.
"That's probably one area where I've had a few thought bubbles. Not about individuals but trying to define in my own head what it will take to coach a Tasmanian team and an establishment team," Gale told AFL.com.au.
"I think resilience is going to be really important because there'll be some questions asked. There'll be forks in the road early on and it's a passionate football state. I think the ability to work with youth and develop [will be important].
"I've really looked at Scott Roth with great admiration and one of the things he's done really well is engage the whole state. To some extent you're almost coaching the state a little bit. The decentralised nature of Tasmania means there's got to be rubber on the road.
"You have to spend a bit of time engaging, sharing the love and spruiking the gospel, so to speak. There's some requirements that are just the same in capability and experience, but there are some different aspects to Tasmania that might require some deeper consideration."
Former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley has been flagged as a potential coaching target for Tasmania as well as now departed Sydney coach John Longmire. Gale said he was yet to contact Longmire since he had stepped away from his post as Swans coach after 14 seasons.
Brisbane premiership coach Chris Fagan, a fellow Tasmanian, has extended his contract to the end of 2027 and will also loom as a target.
Appointing a recruiting and list management team, as well as other key football department personnel, is among the priorities for Gale as he settles into his Devils stint, acknowledging the need to get the list build right from the start.
"The first part of my tenure is really getting on the road and immersing myself in the state and absorbing a lot of information, listening, learning and meeting all the important stakeholders – AFL, Government, people in Tasmania, business, community," he said.
"This is a conditional licence – let's not forget that – so there's still plenty of work to do. So that's the first aspect in building that real understanding so you start to build out your organisation. But for a few hard-working employees, we need to build an entire off-field organisation and that's before the football and the team.
"We need to build really strong cultural foundations, then the focus will start to turn to some key football decisions, particularly those in and around list management. As an establishment club we get one really rich opportunity to set our club up for competitiveness and success and we need to get that right.
"And then this is not an inexpensive exercise so we need to start thinking about how we're going to make money. We're always going to be a small market club. We're not going to be a big market club like some of the big Melbourne clubs or interstate clubs so we have to find a way to make money and make this work."
With more than 200,000 founding members having already signed with Tasmania, Gale said he could feel the enthusiasm within the state about its team.
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"This will light Tasmania up. It will create pathways, local heroes, ambition, aspiration. It will impact the state's youth, education, health, vitality, the economy. I'm really excited about all of those things that are perhaps a little harder to quantify," he said.
Watch Brendon Gale's exclusive first interview as Tasmania's CEO in full now on AFL.com.au and the AFL Live Official App.