Tasmania’s first AFL senior coach has spent his opening press conference selling the world’s largest timber-roofed stadium, telling Tasmanians they do not fully understand what the 23,000-seat Macquarie Point venue will do for them. Ken Hinkley was unveiled in Hobart today to lead the Tasmania Devils into the AFL from 2028, on a five-year contract running from 1 November to the end of 2031.
Winning the job ahead of Nathan Buckley and John Longmire caps a 13-year Port Adelaide tenure of 297 games and 174 wins for the 59-year-old, who presented to chief executive Brendon Gale and the club’s board on Sunday. “I’m absolutely certain we’ve got the right man,” Devils chair Grant O’Brien said, confirming an appointment built on teaching young players rather than the best win-loss record in the field.
“I can’t wait for the noise of 23,000 Tasmanians roaring under a roof,” Hinkley said today, of a venue he believes will carry the state into world entertainment as much as football. His measure is the redeveloped Adelaide Oval, home to both South Australian clubs since 2014 and his own ground until the end of last season.
That noise will rise beneath the largest timber roof on any stadium in the world, a 190-metre Cox Architecture dome framed where possible in Tasmanian-sourced glulam and carrying translucent ETFE pillows, a 20-millimetre timber laminate, and steel rod bracing. The summary report cost the dome $160 million, on top of the $1.13 billion project that cleared Tasmania’s Parliament, after the AFL made a roofed Hobart venue a condition of licence number 19.
“The volume created underneath will promote an awe-inspiring experience,” the stadium’s planning submission reads, with the glulam expressed across the underside of the dome as the showcase for Tasmanian-grown timber. Cricket Australia’s push to redesign or remove the roof has moved closer to resolution, with past and current cricketers trialling a matte-treated ETFE lining on a physical rig at the site in March to disperse the shadows that threatened the venue’s Test future.
It comes as excavators are due on site this month, with Tasmanian firm Hazell Brothers awarded the bulk earthworks contract in May and Hunter Mason engaged to dismantle, store, and rebuild the heritage Goods Shed inside the future precinct. April’s shortlist left Besix Watpac and the Constructure Joint Venture of Webuild, China Construction Oceania, and McConnell Dowell tendering for the main contract, targeted for award by the end of 2026, ahead of major building works from mid-2027.
Opposition has followed the project into procurement, with Greens leader Rosalie Woodruff branding the venue a vanity project during the parliamentary debate, while the state debt is forecast to double to $10 billion by 2028-29.
Until the gates open, the Devils will split home seasons 6 to 5 in Launceston’s favour between UTAS Stadium and Hobart’s Ninja Stadium, with the $130 million UTAS renovation showing extensive mass timber across the roof and concourse in council renders. Even on the club’s own schedule, the first bounce under the dome remains five seasons away, a wait Gale has already put dates on.
“It’ll be ready early to mid-2030,” Gale said in April, with commissioning to follow and the Devils’ first premiership match at Macquarie Point pencilled in for Round 1 of 2031.
