Decision on Gold Coast league season delayed despite ‘positive’ meeting
Rugby League Gold Coast officials gathered on Monday night to discuss the future of the 2020 season.
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THOUSANDS of Gold Coast rugby league players will have to wait until Tuesday to learn their fate in 2020 after a Rugby League Gold Coast meeting on Monday night.
Amid speculation both senior and junior competitions could be cancelled amid a league-wide vote, league board members gathered to mull over the coroniavirus-hit season.
In the end they chose to make the decision public on Tuesday.
Ormeau and Runaway Bay had already flagged their intention to sit out the rest of the season citing financial strain.
Others were keen to keep the season afloat, with the fate of juniors possibly not decided for a few more weeks in the hope of easing restrictions.
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A RLGC spokesman said the board had come to a positive decision during Monday night’s meeting to decide the fate of the Coast’s junior and senior seasons.
“The meeting went well,” he told the Bulletin.
“We came to a positive decision and we’ll be releasing all details (today) once something is typed.
“Positive outcomes were reached with many more decisions still to come with guidelines lifting.”
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It’s an unsustainable figure that places undue pressure on the mum and dad volunteers without whom the Gold Coast’s junior rugby league clubs would collapse under the strain.
It’s a risk the junior clubs must embrace if they hope to return to play with the future carrot of lessened restrictions their reward, according to Parkwood Sharks president Ronan Byrne.
“The 100-person limit is the killer for cash,” he said.
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“We need to sell for the club to recoup some money from the bar, but mostly from the canteen for the keeps.
“The restrictions place a limit on the number of volunteers, which becomes a problem because of the extra burden on the same half a dozen volunteers who usually put their hands up.
“It’s ridiculous because when you go to a school there are none of those restrictions.
“There’s a big grey area and I don’t know if proceeding is the right decision because of the uncertainty around who will come back afterwards.”
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Helensvale Hornets president Wayne Court slammed the government’s expectations as unrealistic and said until they changed community sport on the Gold Coast would be impossible.
“I don’t think we’ll see a result tonight,” he said.
“Whether we’re for or against it, I’ll be saying to them that these restrictions won’t work.
“If it was to change to one person per four square-metres it would be business as usual.
“This whole process is draining and it’s strained everyone involved in the process.
“We’re down and out working against these restrictions with officials who don’t listen.”
For Hornets, who fielded as many as 600 juniors among their 40 senior teams in 2019, any return to play will be contingent on updated policy.
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The Bulletin ealrier revealed as many as four Rugby League Gold Coast senior clubs could withdraw from the 2020 A Grade competition while about 6000 juniors face a nervous wait to learn their rugby league futures.
Clubs were given until Friday to decide whether they were in or out ahead of Monday night’s RLGC board meeting to determine whether the season could proceed.
The Coast’s senior competition is in danger of outright cancellation after clubs voted against returning to play under current restrictions.
Burleigh, Tugun and Southport have voted in favour of playing while Ormeau and Runaway Bay voted against.
The fate of the season and the region’s 2000 senior players now rests on Mudgeeraba and Currumbin, who hold the deciding votes.
The two clubs have expressed reluctance to play under current conditions but are open to restarting the competition if restrictions ease as expected over the coming weeks.
For now their answer is no, forcing the affirmative voting bloc to explore new options outside the traditional competition structure.
Southport president Tim Mahoney said the Ipswich club competition had undergone a similar process that left as many as three of their clubs without a competition to play in.
Linking Tugun, Burleigh, his Southport Tigers and their likeminded cousins in Ipswich and southern Brisbane would allow interested players to continue their seasons, he said.
“I’ve had multiple conversations with Damian Driscoll (Burleigh President) about how Rugby League Ipswich have cancelled their season,” Mahoney said.
“I was told figures of 85 per cent (had elected against playing), so if there are one to three clubs up there who want to play maybe we could play an SEQ region comp.
“The QRL have a roadmap (for an SEQ competition) themselves because that’s how the women and girls’ competitions been run.
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“Our Tigers women have done that in that comp, playing as far as Ipswich and Pine Rivers.
“There’s no reason that women’s competition model can’t be used for men.
“We’ve put it to the RLGC office to put it to the board during Monday night’s meeting so we’re hopeful it will go ahead in some form.”
RLGC officials say a decision on the senior competition will likely be reached on Monday night but will be subject to change if restrictions ease.
A decision on the junior competition could take even longer, chairman Peter Daley said.
“We’ll make that decision based on the relaxation of numbers at the ground,” he said.
“If they come out in a week or two and make it 200 or 300 (instead of 100) it will make it much easier to manage.
“In seniors you have three grades and three games in a day but some clubs have as many as 40 junior sides and it will take a lot more time to get them through (at 100 players per venue at any one time).”
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