Lock-up too much - Hinkley

PORT Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley says AFL players are “probably being shut down a little bit too far” in terms of what they can and cannot do in the community.

As states start to ease COVID-19 restrictions, the Power will ramp up training in a bid to keep the season going when it resumes on June 11.

Hinkley said his players and rival Adelaide’s men would have to deal with a lot.

“I drove around Adelaide yesterday and the movement that I see in our state, a clean state that has no infections,” he said. “To me, we can live above the standard.

“We are getting tested twice a week but I’m looking at the community, thinking everyone else is having to live a pretty reasonable life. I think we are probably being shut down a little bit too far in terms of what we can and can’t do.”

Yesterday, Power players returned to Alberton for the first time since March, going through the club and training in six separate groups as part of COVID-19 protocols.

They will train at Alberton this week, in the limited groups, before flying to the Gold Coast on Sunday to enter into what the AFL has called a “high-performance centre” to get the required contact training in before the season restarts.

An AFL memo provided to players says they can go to supermarkets, pharmacies, petrol stations, get takeaway food or drink, take kids to school or daycare and visit a close friend or family member in hospital.

What they cannot do includes surf, play golf, let any social visitors into their homes, sit down in a cafe, go to a friend’s house for a meal and have people — including families if they don’t live with them — over to their house.