Covid Adelaide: SA community football leagues’ plans to salvage 2021 season after lockdown
SA’s country and suburban football leagues are considering a wide range of options to save their 2021 seasons disrupted by the statewide lockdown.
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Reduced finals series, shifting rounds and extending the season to the October long weekend are all on the cards as suburban and country football leagues attempt to salvage their seasons.
SA’s community competitions were thrown into confusion in the lead up to finals following the seven-day statewide lockdown announced on Tuesday.
With no guarantee when local sport and crowds will be permitted, leagues have been forced to plan for best and worst case scenarios in order to complete the season before ovals are handed over to cricket.
Adelaide Footy League chief executive John Kernahan said contingency plans included playing grand finals on the October long weekend, as it did last year.
“We have spare weeks to play with but the lessons from last year were we are a resilient group and as long as we remain agile and prepared to work within our capacities, we’ll get there,” Kernahan said.
“We have time on our side. We can condense finals from top five to top four then, if required, a top three.
“Certainly the latter wouldn’t be ideal but neither is Covid-19 or variants.”
Kernahan said the integrity of the competition was a significant consideration but, if time allowed, a full home and away season was higher priority than a top five finals series for its seven divisions.
In a best-case scenario with restrictions lifted to allow for matches on July 31, the league would continue the season as scheduled and move this coming weekend’s missed matches to the end of the fixture.
Football’s return will not only be dependent on the ban on sport being lifted, but also crowd restrictions.
The latter is of high concern for country competitions which depend on the financial boost from gate takings to survive, especially during finals.
Hills Football League president Don Cranwell said a range of options were on the cards but hoped a more informed decision on the season could be made next week.
“Planning for best and worst case scenarios is exactly what we’re doing right now,” Cranwell said.
“We’re staying positive though. Pushing things back a week or two is manageable but after that it becomes more difficult.”
Cranwell said crowd capacities, the impact on the league and the clubs, avoiding clashes with the SANFL and AFL grand finals all needed to be considered with any rescheduling.
The Great Southern Football League also plans to move round 14’s matches to be played as the last minor round.
GSFL president Terry Corcoran said he was staying “glass half-full” on the season.
“If we can extended the season by one week, at this stage, we can fit the grand final into the October long weekend like we did last year,” Corcoran said.
“At the moment its just a wait and see … I’m staying positive we’ll get back to some sort of normality.”
The Barossa, Light & Gawler Football Association has revealed plans to move this Saturday’s matches to July 31, if football is permitted to return.
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