Sport is back
With the shire of Cardinia included in the latest lockdown of metropolitan Melbourne, junior sporting competitions have rushed into action to get a season started this Saturday.
The Warragul and District Junior Football league will see Bunyip, Garfield, Caldermeade and several players from Longwarry unable to compete in the competition until mid-August when the lockdown looks to end, however league president Rob Reid said they have a plan in place.
“It will definitely be going ahead still. We are looking at releasing the first six weeks of the competition and by the end of that, we can hopefully welcome those three clubs and the Longwarry players back for the last part as we are hoping to go until the 12th of September,” Mr Reid said.
The Gippsland league have released their official fixture, a nine-round home and away season followed by four weeks of finals, with the grand final taking place on October 10. The lockdown has not affected teams in the league, and it will start on Saturday.
Start times have been adjusted, with the under 16s football to get underway at 11am, followed by the under 18s at 1pm. In the junior netball, under 13s will start at 11am, with under 15s at 12:30pm and under 17s to finish off the day at 2pm.
The first round will see Warragul host Sale, while Drouin will welcome Moe to town. Morwell will play Leongatha, Bairnsdale host Traralgon and Maffra will see Wonthaggi make the trip north east to kick off Round 1.
In the West Gippsland Hockey league, the lockdown has affected one team in particular, however vice-president Andrew Mock said they are hoping to continue as planned.
“At this stage we are proceeding but it will affect hockey as there are only four teams in the local competition. One club has a few from Cardinia but even if it means reduced numbers, when that lockdown is lifted, we want them to come and join in,” Mr Mock said. “It will just be seeing what numbers we have and going forward from there,” he added.
The Gippsland Bulls representative team’s competition looks to be off after the announcement with many of their matches to be played in lockdown areas of Melbourne.
The West Gippsland Football Netball league has also called off their planned junior season with some teams situated inside the lockdown area, meaning it wasn’t viable.
Over in Mid Gippsland, they have released an updated draw after Stony Creek withdrew their netball sides, causing a reshuffle. They’ll begin on Saturday.
Warragul United are continuing to wait on direction from Football Victoria, with their season set to begin on July 25, there is now doubt that the State 1 competition can run, with Warragul the only team from a regional area competing.
Secretary Paul Sheehan said that he believes FV are looking at a way to still host a season in some capacity.
“With this six-week lockdown, it would actually only push our season three weeks further back than originally thought, so they may be looking at a way to cut just three rounds off,” Sheehan said.
Warragul United have three of their members now prohibited from entering the Baw Baw Shire, one of which happens to be their senior coach, Paul Cooper, but are continuing to train for now.
“It’s hard, we are still training but some players are beginning to lose motivation now, so some may end up just pulling the pin and coming back next year. Our assistant coach has stepped up for now while Paul has had to stay put, so we’ll keep going with that for now,” Sheehan said.
In the Gippsland Soccer League, the season was to begin on July 19 for juniors and August 2 for seniors, however the decision was made on Saturday to cancel all competition for 2020.