The differing challenges Gold Coast and Brisbane QAFL clubs face in the pre-season

What is the price of a QAFL premiership. We dissect the differing challenges both Gold Coast and Brisbane clubs face in their bid to prepare for the 2020 season.

WHAT is the price of a QAFL premiership?

The campaign to win one for Brisbane and Gold Coast QAFL clubs begins with the pre-season and the circumstances surrounding how both prepare for the year have two big differences.

Three of Gold Coast’s QAFL clubs, including Broadbeach, Palm Beach Currumbin and Surfers Paradise, share their grounds with cricket clubs and don’t have full access to the facilities until April.

Brisbane teams Morningside, Mt Gravatt, Western Magpies, Wilston Grange and Sandgate are pure football clubs with unfettered access to the grounds all-year round.

Broadbeach Cats QAFL coach Beau Zorko addresses the players. Picture credit: Travis Johnson.

There is just one setback. They have to pay around $20,000 to the Brisbane City Council for maintenance annually. It’s a hefty charge for a state league team.

Broadbeach senior men’s coach Beau Zorko said he believed the QAFL season was being brought forward a week, placing Round 1 on March 28, due to the addition of Maroochydore to the league, pushing it further into the cricket season.

The weekend is already marked for grand finals for the Queensland Premier Cricket and Cricket Gold Coast leagues.

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Zorko said it would make mapping out dates for important pre-season practice matches even more difficult for a club that is traditionally left to try and play out of Brisbane venues or head to the Sunshine Coast like they did earlier this year.

“What it does is cause more of a headache,” Zorko said.

“We don’t have the ground availability that they do in Brisbane. It’s not a problem we haven’t had to deal with before. Our issue on the Gold Coast is green space and the cricket community would feel the same.

“The silver lining is it has brought the football and cricket clubs closer together because they have to share the ground and get along.

“In a perfect world if we could potentially redevelop areas for more green space.

“We will have to look at venues like Robina and Coomera and build relationships with them because they are the two clubs who we could potentially use their groundspace.”