Queensland holds key to saving AFL season
THE AFL is desperate to open up a Covid bridge to Queensland to finish the home-andaway season after finalising its Round 19 fixture on Monday.
The league dragged three games from Round 20 into the upcoming weekend of games, with the Melbourne-western Bulldogs contest now the highlight of Round 19.
That game is at 7.25pm on Saturday night at the MCG, but will again be played without any fans due to the extended Melbourne lockdown.
The AFL has knocked back the Cats’ request to play the
Geelong-richmond game at GMHBA instead of the MCG.
That clash is on Sunday afternoon but at a time yet to be fixed, while Brisbane-gold Coast and Adelaide-hawthorn have also been moved from Round 20 to Round 19.
The Adelaide-hawthorn game will be played at 5.40pm Adelaide time on Saturday.
Collingwood will fly to Adelaide to play Port Adelaide at 6.45pm local time, giving the Pies time to fly out at night.
The Carlton-north Melbourne contest has been moved from the Sunday of Round 19 to Saturday afternoon, with the West Coast-st
Kilda game moved from a night game to the afternoon.
Sydney versus Fremantle will be at Metricon Stadium at 12.35pm on Sunday, while the Essendon-gws game does not have a venue or time.
The Dons are still hopeful they could fly back into Melbourne to host that game, but with the lockdown extended there would be no crowd.
If Essendon played the Giants in Queensland the game would likely be at Metricon Stadium on Sunday as a double-header, which would need another 6.10pm start time.
But if it was able to fly back to Melbourne the AFL would have its pick of which of Essendon-gws and GeelongRichmond were in the 3.20pm and 4.40pm timeslots.
The AFL is confident it can still fly Victorian teams in lockdown to South Australia, with Collingwood and Hawthorn the latest to be forced into 60-hour quarantine to fulfil health requirements. They will also need negative Covid tests when they arrive in Adelaide this weekend.
In effect the league has pushed bigger problems back a week as states continue to battle the effects of the Delta strain. The league’s greatest priority is to find a way to allow Melbourne teams to fly into Queensland in the same manner as their trips to South Australia and with the same heightened Covid protocols.
It would allow Hawthorn to play Brisbane in Round 20 in Melbourne, with the Lions in a Covid bubble and allowed back to Queensland without 14 days of quarantine.
In Round 21 the Blues are set to host Gold Coast while St Kilda will host a Sydney team staying in Queensland, with only that “sterile corridor” allowing the league to finish its home-and-away season with games scheduled as the league announced in the pre-season.