SECOND FIXTURE AXING TO HIT DEES HIP POCKET

WA restrictions throw fixture into doubt

NORTH Hobart Oval has gone from hero to zero in the space of a month, after losing its second AFL fixture.

The AFLW game originally scheduled for North Melbourne-Tasmania v Richmond today but since postponed, has now been scrapped altogether.

But tonight’s AFLW RoosCarlton will go ahead.

The cancellation comes after the spiritual home of Tasmanian

football had its AFL men’s pre-season game between the Kangaroos and Adelaide, intended for Sunday, cancelled earlier this month due to border closure fears.

North Hobart Football Club president Craig Martin said the cancellations would hit the Demons in the hip pocket.

“It is disappointing,” he said. “It is a loss of revenue we could have done with, but again it is the world we are living in at the moment, there is not much we can do about it. We just get on with it.”

But he said there was a silver lining for the Demons due to the cancellation.

“It means we can train on the ground now, which is very exciting for the players,” he said. “The ground is absolutely superb, that’s a positive that come out of it.

“Bit it is disappointing it is not going ahead, we’ve always put on a good show here at North Hobart. It is what it is.”

THE AFL admits it might have to scrap its current fixture after only a single round as tight West Australian border restrictions threaten to cause fixture chaos again.

The league has Fremantle flying to Victoria in Round 1 to take on Melbourne, with West Coast scheduled to play the Western Bulldogs in Melbourne in Round 2.

It means Fremantle could not fly back into Perth to host GWS in Round 2 because the players would be forced into a 14-day quarantine after having visited Victoria.

West Coast would have an identical problem for its Round 3 fixture.

The WA government has stated it will need 28 days without community transmission in Victoria before dropping border restrictions.

WA premier Mark McGowan said on Friday afternoon

Victoria’s two new positives did not reset the count to zero, suggesting border restrictions to Victoria would ease by March 13.

That would allow both WA based teams to fly in and out of the state freely, but it would take only another COVID case that spread past close contacts for the WA border to again be closed, throwing the fixture into uncertainty.

AFL fixturing boss Travis Auld conceded on Friday that the league was still in talks with the WA state government about how the fixture could proceed.

The tight restrictions might force the WA-based teams on the road for the early weeks of the season again in a reprise of last year’s nightmare fixture.

“The Round 1 fixture as it stands, we can proceed with that. The challenge will be Fremantle coming to Victoria to play Melbourne. It presents an issue as it stands for Fremantle going back to WA, they would have to quarantine,” Auld said.

“That causes issues for them but it causes issues for us as a competition and West Coast play Gold Coast in Round 1, but in Round 2 they come to Melbourne. So it’s the same issue for them. We have a challenge in West Australia. We have got to work through that challenge.

“Our goal is to work through the fixture to the extent we can but clearly we have to work with those clubs and the WA government to see if there is a better solution without compromising the health of the community.

Asked what that compromise might be, Auld replied: “I wish I had the answer to that”.

The AFL has several shortterm options.