Fans plan for picnics despite government not coming to the party for NRL grand Final

Sydneysiders have vowed to gather to watch the NRL grand final together despite both the premier and the deputy premier skewering the proposal for Covid-safe live sites.

Sydneysiders have vowed to watch the NRL grand final together despite the government shutting down the proposal for crowds gather inside stadiums or at Covid-safe live sites from east to west.

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said if people were upset at her shutting down the possibility of the game being shown on big screens at outdoor venues for a select number of socially distanced and fully-vaccinated fans, she was happy to take the blame.

“I’m asking everybody to hold the line, we don’t want to see case numbers surge before we start opening up,” Ms Berejiklian said.

“Blame me for not having those celebrations, but we’ve come so far, we’ve done it so tough, let’s not give up at the last hurdle.“

While the government has skewered the suggestion of Covid-safe large scale NRL Grand Final gatherings, it has done nothing to dampen the excitement of Penrith fan Logan Klauze. Picture: David Swift

The news Covid-safe Grand Final gatherings are unlikely to go ahead is hardly going to wipe the smile off the face of three-year-old Penrith Panthers fan Logan Klauze.

“After every game Logan gets up next morning and watches the panthers highlights on YouTube, he’s a hard panthers supporter,” his mum Shanaee said.

But for Mrs Klauze, the prospect of the community coming together to watch the all-Sydney clash was an exciting one, after a tough two years.

“Half of our families are Rabbitohs supporters and the other half are Panthers supporters so if we could watch it together it would be crazy,” she said.

“There’s so many recreational centres around Penrith that they should be able to have a hundred or so people at each park.”

Despite the government so far refusing to come to the party, some footy fans have vowed to legally try and watch the Grand Final in unison anyway.

Peter Huttly is a lifelong South Sydney fan who is so fanatical about his team that he bought the Park Cafe, located at the bottom of the grandstand at Redfern Oval.

He now lives on Burney Ave in Mascot next to dozens of other Rabbitohs fans who are hoping to be able to gather together in the lane behind their homes on Sunday to safely watch the game on a big screen.

“It’s a shame we can’t get to the game but we’ll do something within Covid rules,“ Mr Huttly said.

Diehard fans of the South Sydney Rabbitohs on McBurney Ave in Mascot are hoping to gather in the back lane to watch the game on a big screen. Picture: Adam Yip

“We’re allowed five people to a picnic so we might have a few picnics in the back lane, we’ll see what we can do.”

The initial idea which had backing of South Sydney and administrators, including Venues NSW chairman Tony Shepherd, involved certain safeguards being put in place including a capped crowd with those in attendance being fully-vaccinated, receiving rapid antigen testing on arrival and being socially distanced.

The same safeguards were not observed over the weekend when large groups of people gathered on the hill at Sydney beaches, including Bondi.

In response to The Daily Telegraph‘s article on the proposal for Grand Final live sites, deputy premier John Barilaro said while it would have been “nice” the government was not willing to take the risk.

“The idea that we can open a stadium up with 1000s of people, we wouldn’t (allow it),” Mr Barilaro told 2GB on Monday.

“We wouldn’t have hit the 70 per cent double dose mark so that would be under the current arrangements and the answer is no. It would have been a nice thing to do but we just can’t do it. It’s too risky.”

Originally published as Fans plan for picnics despite government not coming to the party for NRL grand Final