No more night games in 2015 at Noarlunga after failure of Hickinbotham Oval lights
NO more night games will played at Noarlunga this season due to doubts about the reliability of the oval’s floodlights, which failed before Saturday evening’s match between South Adelaide and the Crows.
NO more night games will played at Noarlunga this season due to doubts about the reliability of the oval’s floodlights, which failed before Saturday evening’s scheduled match between South Adelaide and the Crows.
It is feared the lighting issues, which forced the game to be shifted to the following day, could happen again.
South had technicians at the ground yesterday but provided little detail on what caused two flood lights to go out in the lead-up to the match.
The issue was serious enough for the SANFL to move Panthers’ scheduled night match against Norwood on Friday, May 15 to The Parade.
The Redlegs and Panthers will then play a day match at Hickinbotham Oval later in the season.
SANFL general manager football Adam Kelly said that after discussion with South Adelaide this week it was decided there was a risk of further issues.
“Following the failure of light towers at the game scheduled last Saturday night between South Adelaide and Adelaide at Hickinbotham Oval, a decision has been made not to program further night games at South Adelaide’s home ground in 2015,” Kelly said.
“South Adelaide provided details of its maintenance schedule, which included an inspection of the light towers by a qualified professional on the eve of the season.
“Until the issue causing the light towers to fail can be rectified, the SANFL and South Adelaide won’t take any risk with the scheduling of night games at Noarlunga.
“The Round 7 and Round 15 fixture changes have been agreed to by the South Adelaide and Norwood football clubs.”
Meantime, key Glenelg defender Warrick McGinity will miss at least six matches after breaking his jaw in a collision with Norwood’s Ben Jefferies on Friday night.
McGinity was reported for charging over the incident and was offered a one match ban by the SANFL incident review panel.