Warriors families apply for travel exemptions
The Warriors are about to make their first application to get the players’ families to Australia, while David Fusitu’a has arrived in the country.
On May 21 the team will be able to leave their bubble in Tamworth NSW and will relocate to Gosford, where they will be in apartment style accommodation, so that families can eventually live together.
But it isn’t straight forward to get the players’ families to the other side of the Tasman, as only Australian citizens or permanent residents are allowed to enter the country, because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Warriors CEO Cameron George has been in discussions with the players’ families and said they’re planning on two separate applications to get them to Australia.
‘‘We’re looking at applying for exemptions in two different windows,’’ George told Stuff.
‘‘We’ve asked that by close of business tonight (yesterday), any families that wish to apply, to let us know and that will be the first application we make.
‘‘Then I said to all of the families that we need to know about a second round of applicants by May 26.
‘‘So for the ones that want to apply now, that’s no problem, we’ll apply but they have to understand that there is the Australian government’s travel plan in place, particularly around isolation when you go into Australia, which is 14 days.’’
It’s likely that the players partners who don’t have children could decide to be in the first group of applications for exemptions, as they won’t have to deal with the issues of keeping little ones in quarantine.
Other families will decide to wait a bit longer, to see if travel restrictions between countries are eased.
‘‘But the reason why I’ve put the second back to the end of May is because there is some positive stuff happening between Australia and New Zealand about a potential trans-Tasman bubble,’’ George said.
‘‘So this allows a bit more time for the families to see if anything becomes better, in regards to travel.’’
A full trans-Tasman bubble could mean the players can freely come back and forth between Australia and New Zealand during the NRL season and could even play games at Mt Smart Stadium.
It that’s the case, some families may decide it’s not worth pulling their children out of schools for a few months.
The application process for an exemption to get into Australia isn’t straight forward and the Warriors needed to wait eight days before they were allowed to fly to Tamworth on May 3.
Unlike the Warriors players, the two the families won’t be able to be in one big bubble and they’ll be treated like everyone else entering Australia and will have to spend 14 days quarantined in Sydney.
Stuff understands that centre Fusitu’a left New Zealand yesterday and has begun his 14 days in isolation.
This means he’ll be able to join his team-mates in the Central Coast on May 26, which will rule him out of playing in the Warriors’ first game when the season resumes from May 28.
Meanwhile Warriors winger Ken Maumalo said from the team’s base in Tamworth yesterday that the players have enjoyed being able to do contact training again, even though it gave him a bit of a headache.
‘‘We had a light one yesterday,’’ Maumalo said of Monday’s contact session.
‘‘I hadn’t done contact training for the last six or seven weeks, so it was a bit of a shock to the body, but it was good that we got it out of the way yesterday.’’