Covid 19 and footy - season (suspended) now resumed

[Blood Fever]

Maxie employed as opposition analyst, which would make sense if he's based in Melbourne. I've seen him at training in Sydney but he was certainly never a regular face around the place. I'm sure we'll continue to hold him close and value him in our inner sanctum. Hopefully there are no bad feelings.

Hope he returns at some stage. He had a role on match day in front of the bench as well as his analyst position.

[chuckie]

I noticed this morning that the English Premier League teams have got face mask with their club logos on them.
Maybe I have missed it but has the greedy AFL missed a chance of making money from this pandemic.
I think it would have been a good idea, it may off saved people from getting covid 19 and also financially helped the clubs.

[707]

With queensland declaring its borders closed to NSW and Victoria, how does that not impact the Gold Coast Hub with Brisbane, GC, Freo, WC, Adel and Perth all located there.
Are they going to play amongst themselves for 5 or so rounds, expecting the borders to open after that ?, or do they have a travel excemption ?

It also seems that us and GWS are teams without a hub at the moment, and very vunerable to any NSW imposed travel restrictions. Should we have moved up there too, or to the victorian hub. ?

SA teams are not in a hub and now unlikely to be with the SA government easing restrictions rapidly after no new cases for nearly five weeks. Looks likely SA teams will FIFO each week to the eastern states for games, initially to Qld to play the four teams there.

There is no hub in Vic, clubs are just observing the necessary rules so they can train and play.

Qld has given the ok for other AFL teams to FIFO for games. They haven't given me permission to go on my annual two month winter trip to the Sunshine Coast - bloody Amanda Palachook!

[Mel_C]

Hope he returns at some stage. He had a role on match day in front of the bench as well as his analyst position.

Yes he has been on the interchange bench for a few years. Last year he was in charge of the rotations and would hold a board up relaying messages to the players because of the runner restrictions. (At Marvel stadium I sit near the interchange bench and sometimes he would block view of the game!)

There seems to be shock about Tadgh being let go. Hopefully it is only temporary due to the football department restrictions for this year.

[Blood Fever]

Yes he has been on the interchange bench for a few years. Last year he was in charge of the rotations and would hold a board up relaying messages to the players because of the runner restrictions. (At Marvel stadium I sit near the interchange bench and sometimes he would block view of the game!)

There seems to be shock about Tadgh being let go. Hopefully it is only temporary due to the football department restrictions for this year.

Went to the Swans game in Brisbane last year and was right near the Swans bench. Good place to watch game and I was sitting near Swans officials as well. Didn't help the result. We got hammered in the clearances. Naismith makes a big difference to us. Sinclair tried very hard that day but got monstered.

[erica]

I noticed this morning that the English Premier League teams have got face mask with their club logos on them.
Maybe I have missed it but has the greedy AFL missed a chance of making money from this pandemic.
I think it would have been a good idea, it may off saved people from getting covid 19 and also financially helped the clubs.

South Sydney NRL team has masks with their logo, too.

[TheBloods]

Read an article on young Ollie Florent about the impact covid has had on everyone at the club and a point he made really stood out to me... Swans legends who have given up to two decades to the club have found themselves in limbo in the space of a few months. How quickly life can change.
Very strange times indeed.. but i have faith that it will make some of these young Bloods still relatively new to the club really appreciate the opportunity they have to be able to be part of such a fantastic club. Players like Florent have the chance to become the third generation of true Bloods. That would be perhaps the best way for them to honour genuine club greats like Tadgh and Maxy.

[dimelb]

Read an article on young Ollie Florent about the impact covid has had on everyone at the club and a point he made really stood out to me... Swans legends who have given up to two decades to the club have found themselves in limbo in the space of a few months. How quickly life can change.
Very strange times indeed.. but i have faith that it will make some of these young Bloods still relatively new to the club really appreciate the opportunity they have to be able to be part of such a fantastic club. Players like Florent have the chance to become the third generation of true Bloods. That would be perhaps the best way for them to honour genuine club greats like Tadgh and Maxy.

I see it the same way.
And Tadhg's name ends as H G Nelson starts!

[Mel_C]

With a 17 game season it means there is going to be an uneven number of home v away games for each team. How is the AFL going to deal with this to make it fair?

[liz]

Define “fair”. The Vic based teams already travel less than other clubs. The WA and SA teams;probably) will land up playing “neutral” games against each other in Queensland, where neither has to travel from their existing base, and both are playing on grounds they are not especially familiar with. No team is going to have fans present to gee them up (and maybe influence umpiring calls), at least for the first half of the season. Personally I doubt we’ll have crowds back any time this year, but if we do, those SA and WA teams could get an extra benefit from a run of games in their parochial home stated, with crowds. All depends on what you think the bigger contributors to home game advantage are. The fact that some clubs may nominally get nine home games and others eight is probably one of the least distorting features of this year’s competition.

[Ludwig]

I wouldn't worry too much about fairness of the comp this year, or even the run for the premiership. For the Swans, the important thing is to get game time into our young team and set ourselves for a solid run up the ladder next year. Covid has put a big dent into a season I was really looking forward to this season, even though just making the 8 would be a real accomplishment, because I feel we are on the verge of a strong run in the coming years. Now I'm just happy to if we complete the season with this abbreviated schedule.

[Meg]

Covid 19 and footy - season (suspended) now resumed

I wouldn't worry too much about fairness of the comp this year, or even the run for the premiership. For the Swans, the important thing is to get game time into our young team and set ourselves for a solid run up the ladder next year. Covid has put a big dent into a season I was really looking forward to this season, even though just making the 8 would be a real accomplishment, because I feel we are on the verge of a strong run in the coming years. Now I'm just happy to if we complete the season with this abbreviated schedule.

I am of like mind to Ludwig. Far worse examples of unfairness all around us in a pandemic than the possibility of one less home match than some other team.

Re the revised scheduling, I think one of the harder aspects for players might be the new travel arrangements. It has been reported that the schedule for the first five rounds has been designed to allow two teams to travel together in chartered flights. Hence home matches for both Sydney teams in rounds 2, 4 and 5 (with two Vic teams flying together to Sydney) and away matches for both Sydney and GWS at Marvel in round 3.

So for the Kangaroos playing GWS at 1.05pm Sunday 14 June, it seems they will fly in Sunday morning and presumably go straight to the Showgrounds to prepare to play. Then hang around until we have finished off the Bombers [emoji3] later in the afternoon to be able to fly home.

In a normal season North would have flown in the night before, stayed in a hotel, and been able to go through their normal ‘away’ pre-match routines. This might take some adjustment both physically and mentally.

We might be lucky: our trip to Melbourne for round 3 involves GWS playing a Fri night match while we play Sat 1.45pm. So perhaps we will be able to fly down Fri with GWS and stay overnight, that is a ‘normal’ routine.

https://7news.com.au/sport/afl/chartered-planes-the-secret-ingredient-to-revised-afl-fixture-c-1058713

[Legs Akimbo]

I wouldn't worry too much about fairness of the comp this year, or even the run for the premiership. For the Swans, the important thing is to get game time into our young team and set ourselves for a solid run up the ladder next year. Covid has put a big dent into a season I was really looking forward to this season, even though just making the 8 would be a real accomplishment, because I feel we are on the verge of a strong run in the coming years. Now I'm just happy to if we complete the season with this abbreviated schedule.

Spot on. I'm just glad to see our team playing. This year is going to have an asterisk against it when looking back. We just have to accept the situation, adapt, push on, make the most of it. I'm sure that's the message at the club too. That's a life message and learning opportunity for our kids too.

[MattW]

With a 17 game season it means there is going to be an uneven number of home v away games for each team. How is the AFL going to deal with this to make it fair?

It's an interesting question I haven't seen raised elsewhere, Mel. While I take the points of the posters who followed your post, the AFL presumably needs to apply some principles to determine which teams have one fewer 'home' games. You'd think the 'fairest' approach would be to give one fewer home games to the Melbourne teams who can play away games at the same empty stadiums as their home games.

[barry]

Happy Peter V'Landys day everyone.

I think we can all thank Peter for forcing the AFL to actually do something about getting a season going in 2020.

Now, just imagine for a minute, if we could get V'Landys as CEO or chairman of the AFL. A can-do, hard-headed, Sydney-based, leader of the AFL. Its so far from what we have now, but if you really wanted to make AFL a national sport, poaching V'Landys is the first step.