SANFL scraps Fast Footy plans for this year’s pre-season

THE SANFL labelled the inaugural Fast Footy pre-season tournament a huge success, but has called off plans to repeat the exercise in February due to a lack of venue.

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There will be no Fast Footy pre-season action in the state league this year.

The SANFL has cited the lack of a suitable venue as the reason for scrapping the competition, which was held at The Parade for the first time last year.

Norwood Oval was not available because of the renovations and a search of another venue proved unsuccessful. However, the SANFL is committed to programming the tournament in 2020.

SANFL general manager football Adam Kelly said there had been difficulties in accessing a suitable venue to host the carnival format, especially in terms of change room facilities for players and the proximity of retail and hospitality precincts that support the event.

“We explored various other locations, but unfortunately the limited availability of SANFL grounds due to cricket, and the significant costs associated with staging the event at other potential central public venues, has given us little choice but to put the event on hold until at least 2020,” Kelly said.

“After receiving an overall positive responsive from the clubs to the inaugural carnival, which was built on the fun, fast and exciting brand of SANFL football we’ve seen over the past few years, the plan was to continue with the event in February this year.

“We’re therefore committed to exploring a venue to relaunch Fast Footy in 2020 as a one-day carnival.”

South Adelaide beat Woodville-West Torrens in the final last year.

Fast Footy restricts teams to 12 a side with four in attack, four in the midfield and four in defence. Forwards cannot enter the defensive 50, defenders cannot enter the forward 50 and midfield cannot enter either 50m arc

They were to have been 30-minute matches this year, 10 minutes less than 2018.

A highlight last year was the competition for best goal celebrations, with Redlegs speedster Anthony Wilson the winner.