Deakin Ducks disadvantaged by lack of players, training venue

DEAKIN Ducks are scrambling to shore up their numbers for this season as many of their student players have returned home because of the coronavirus.

President Jordan Engstrom said the club had also been unable to train as a group at its Waurn Ponds venue as the university was only open to essential staff.

It means Deakin is at a further disadvantage to its rivals, which have been allowed to return to non-contact training in groups of 20.

Engstrom said the club usually had between 140 and 150 players between State League 5 (West) and the domestic competition but it was prepared to only have 80 this year.

“It feels like we’re going to have a large amount of students not be able to return and play for us,” Engstrom said.

“We’ve been trying to survey and get an idea of numbers and at the moment the best case scenario is we’re going to be down around somewhere about 80 players. In previous years we’ve fielded about eight teams and we’re thinking we might get to four if we’re lucky at the moment.”

A Wednesday deadline set by Football Victoria for clubs to finalise team numbers had also added to the setbacks.

Engstrom said it had requested for the date to be pushed back because of its circumstances but the inquiry had been knocked back.

“Most of the students are still waiting on word from the uni about what’s happening,” he said.

“Some are hopeful they’ll be able to come back and get on residence and play but they’re not going to commit.

“There’s a couple from the Northern Territory (and) from Tasmania and the borders are closed so at the moment they can’t get back anyway. We’ve been doing a lot of work trying to sort out numbers and teams and see what we can actually do for the season.”

Deakin hopes to return to its venue in mid-July when contract training starts and Football Victoria has announced competitions can start on July 20. Engstrom said it hoped to have access to the Leisuretime facility in Norlane in the meantime.

“The work is towards getting back to training next week but it all just depends on how our talks go between Deakin and the council getting us that (Leisuretime) venue,” Engstrom said.

“Deakin’s pretty confident we’ll be back by the time of actual games starting.”