Port Adelaide has restricted access to Adelaide Oval for AFL season-opener as ground staff deal with fall-out of Ed Sheeran concert

PORT Adelaide will not have a major training session at Adelaide Oval this week in the lead-up to the AFL season-opener with Fremantle

ON THE GRASS. The recent Ed Sheeran concert at Adelaide Oval has left oval groundstaff needing to revive the turf - and will keep Port Adelaide’s AFL players off the grass until the eve of the AFL season-opener against Fremantle on Saturday. Picture: Dean Martin

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PORT Adelaide will not have access to Adelaide Oval for a training session - and then just a light run - until Friday, the eve of its AFL season-opener with Fremantle.

English singer Ed Sheeran’s recent concert - and the need to revive the Oval’s turf - has locked the Power out of the Oval until 24 hours before the AFL’s start in Adelaide. It is a repeat of last March when the Crows had restricted access to the Oval in the lead-up to their season-opener as ground staff dealt with the turf battering from the Adele concert.

Football’s return to the Oval has not - as first expected - brought a clash with cricket and football and these sports expanding calendars.

Rather, the AFL clubs - who take control of Adelaide Oval from late March by the terms of the joint SANFL-SACA partnership - are being denied training dates at the Oval by the “extra events”, concerts, A-League games, soccer internationals and extreme sports such as the Nitro Circus bikes.

And neither the Crows nor Power are going to put a block on the non-sporting events while there is a commercial backlash to their own bottom lines.

The Oval’s Stadium Management Authority is compelled to book major acts - such as Sheeran and Adele - to generate its own income to maintain the 50,000-seat venue and to minimise the drain on the Crows and Power’s stadium revenue.

Access to the Oval - by SMA and AFL rulings - is a key point to the Power’s launch of the new premiership season with the Saturday afternoon (4.05pm) start against the Dockers.

Training will be restricted to the “Captain’s Run” that generally is a 40-minute, light practice session on the eve of match.

The AFL has banned the first player warm-up that has unfolded for the past two decades in the 40-45 minutes before a match.

But the AFL will not stop players taking to the field in the hour before a game to hone their skills or for goalkicking practice provided there is no curtain-raiser match - and there is no “structured” warm-up with fitness staff or coaches.

Port Adelaide would have preferred the first warm-up to have remained - not just for its players, but as part of the structured match-day routine developed at Adelaide Oval by the Power’s events team.

The first warm-up session was notable at Power games for fans collecting player autographs.

AFL clubs were told on Friday that the pre-season experiment to restrict the team runners’ presence on the field - to just after goals and during the breaks - would not apply to the premiership season.

But the clubs expect the AFL to be tougher on runners who clutter space - or “coach” on the field - and for the pre-season restrictions to apply in the premiership season next year.

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