How cricket season can help local footy return in Melbourne in 2021
How the local cricket season adapts to pandemic protocols will be critical in making sure Melbourne’s local footy leagues return to the field next year but pre-season training is no certainty to begin this month.
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Suburban football leagues will take vital lessons from how Melbourne’s cricket competitions deal with coronavirus protocols as they prepare for 2021.
A handful of cricket associations will start their campaigns this weekend under strict new rules to limit the potential spread of the virus.
How competitions and players adapt and adhere to the health and safety protocols will provide valuable guidance for football administrators.
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Northern Football League president Peter McDougall said the eight metropolitan leagues had already been in contact with interstate football competitions to understand how they managed the season and would keep a close eye on the cricket.
“Yeah, we will (watch cricket competitions) and we’ve spoken to other states and country leagues that got junior footy up this year about how they managed different scenarios,” McDougall said.
“As a collective of leagues, we’re pretty advanced in making sure we’ve got all that covered by picking the brains of everyone that got to play this year.”
Despite the 2020 season being cancelled, the eight metro leagues – NFL, WRFL, EDFL, VAFA, EFL, SFL, YJFL and SMJFL – are still meeting every fortnight.
A return to training is the next major step for Melbourne clubs.
AFL Victoria and Sports and Recreation Victoria are working on a “road map” towards clubs kicking off on November 23.
From November 22, outdoor sports will be limited to 500 people but only in groups of 50 or one person per four square metres.
However, McDougall tempered expectations given the stringent protocols that needed to be put in place first.
He said there was a big difference between groups of 10 partaking in social exercise and “sanctioned” club training.
Several NFL clubs have already organised social catch-ups for their playing groups but are holding off on official pre-season training plans due to the COVID-Safe requirements.
“It’s easy to say we can start training from the 23rd, but there’s a lot of things that go into making sure a club is prepared and compliant,” he said.
“There’s so many things a club would need to have in place to conduct what I could call a sanctioned training versus a group doing outdoor exercise.
“Groups can do that in a social setting but it becomes a sanctioned event all of a sudden a club needs a COVID safe plan, a safety officer, your sanitation procedures and products in place, recording who comes and goes for contract tracing.
“It becomes very complicated just to run a training session because of the compliance requirements.”
Clubs at least will have a head start on health and safety planning having gone through the process earlier this year before the local footy season was cancelled.
McDougall said the return to “normal” pre-season training was still some time away.
“Some senior clubs can have up to 80 players, including under-19s, training during pre-season and we won’t see that before Christmas unless the government does a complete backflip,” he said.
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