What will life really be like for Port Adelaide and the Crows on the AFL’s Gold Coast hub?
It looks like paradise, but it’s no holiday. This is what life will be like for players and staff of the Port Adelaide and Adelaide football clubs inside the AFL’s Gold Coast hub.
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The lavish ballroom tucked inside the Mercure Resort on the Gold Coast is accustomed to hosting exclusive events: charity balls, weddings, awards ceremonies.
Not now. Not during the age COVID-19. This week, the ballroom floor has been covered in 200sq m of high-grade, gym-quality flooring as the Adelaide Football Club converts the function space into it’s own weights and gym room.
So keen are the Crows to ensure their footballers are as “at home” as possible while in the AFL’s Gold Coast quarantine “hub” that they have loaded all the gym equipment from their West Lakes headquarters onto a truck and driven it up to Queensland.
The person responsible for sourcing – and most likely installing – that gym flooring is Darren Birch. In non-COVID times, Birch is the AFL’s general manager of digital and audience growth, but he’s been diverted into a coronavirus compliance and co-ordination role that comes without a title.
“People being smart are calling me the ‘GM of Hubs’,” Birch says with a laugh.
Title or not, it’s been Birch’s job – along with three other AFL representatives – to organise the Gold Coast hub for the four teams (Adelaide, Fremantle, Port Adelaide and West Coast) who will play their next three games in Queensland.
It’s been a mammoth task, including needing to organise 72 hire cars (18 for each club), schedule training sessions and venues, evening converting a rugby field into an AFL training oval complete with goalposts and nets.
“We’ve been trying to co-ordinate gyms, ovals, training facilities, recovery facilities, it’s massive logistics and then making sure we can get some compromise when teams cross over in terms of training requirements,” Birch says.
The Mercure was chosen by the AFL as the “home away from home” for the SA teams and while Port have taken 32 players and 25 staff into the hub, the Crows are taking their full playing list (originally 44, but Wayne Milera will stay behind for surgery on his foot and join the team later if required), as well as 30 staff and the three documentary filmmakers who are following captain Rory Sloane’s season.
There’s been much speculation about whether the families would travel, but in the end no one is initially taking loved ones with them.
Partner of Port Adelaide’s Tom Rockliff, Sharna Roelandts, says when initial talk was that the hub could extend to eight weeks, she and two-year-old son Jack were planning to travel north. But when it was clear that the stint would be about 16 days, she decided she could “tough it out” without Rockliff in Adelaide.
This could well be a smart decision, considering the borders opening between SA and Qld could allow for a more fly-in/fly-out scenario.
“I’m a nurse and we’ve got the dogs too, so we can’t just up and go,” Roelandts says.
“I still have to work, there are still patients, there are still sick people, but I’ll be very tired.”
It’s been a strange old year in their household already, with the Rockliff/Roelandts October wedding postponed to 2021 (since football will likely extended beyond its usual September finish) as well as dealing without their usual routine during the sport shut down.
But despite it all, she is thrilled football is back.
“It was starting to get into a really dark space with no sport,” she says.
“As soon as there was talk the AFL going back, Tom’s spirits were lifted, he had something to focus on again.”
There is also the friendly neighbourhood banter that’s returned too, seeing the couple is surrounded by diehard Crows supporters. Roelandts says Rockliff is delighted to return to the friendly banter with them.
However, he will have to leave all that playful ribbing to one side while on the Gold Coast, considering it’s unlikely the Power and Crows players won’t see much of each other, despite staying at the same resort.
“As a comparison, the WA teams are staying in more of a high-rise tower at the Royal Pines, and the Eagles and Dockers are on different floors, but sharing common areas to enter and leave the hotel,” Birch says.
“Whereas, at the Mercure, there’s every likelihood they won’t cross over, because it’s a more laid out resort, with numerous buildings and areas in the grounds.”
The resort, which is 5.6km from Metricon Stadium, is surrounded by a green belt of golf courses and features two outdoor pools, two floodlit tennis courts and each of the rooms has a balcony.
With recent relaxing of AFL COVID-related protocols, the players will be able to play golf, surf, walk on the beach and go fishing in their spare time. But other strict protocols remain in place, including social distancing remain, hand hygiene and COVID testing twice a week.
Port Adelaide’s general manager of football, Chris Davies says everyone at the club has been getting used to the twice-weekly testing.
“They don’t quite make my eyes water quite as much as they did at the start, but they’re still not comfortable,” he says. “There’s a few people who haven’t been able to cope with it very well, a few guys who have swatted the poor tester’s hand away.
“It’s a crazy test, but we’re getting used to it now.”
Dietitians from both clubs have been liaising with the hotel in regards to food requirements, but Port have asked for a mobile kitchen space to be put into the facility so the players can cook their own food from time to time.
Davies explains: “Two and a half weeks and not being able to be in control of what they eat, when day-to-day they are really mindful of what they put in their mouth was important.
“So the guys have been asking for that and it’s one of those things that the AFL have been able to get done for us.”
What Port most wants to ensure is that their players don’t get bored.
“Boredom is one of the worst things that these groups can go through,” Davies says. “We’ve had a fair bit of time and effort put in to trying to make sure they are not bored, with arcade games, to keep the boys’ minds off football 24 hours a day.
“A lot of the boys who were doing university courses would likely get in more study time.”
Similarly, the Crows are taking along board games with a view to eliminating boredom.
The Crows have recently started a book club with about eight players involved, and they’re reading acclaimed fiction too: the current book is Richard Flanagan’s award-winning The Narrow Road to the Deep North.
Adelaide’s football manager Adam Kelly says he expects a few more boys to jump on board the book club during the hub.
“You can’t hide away from the fact that you’re not home and you’re going to be without your familiar surroundings and creature comforts,” Kelly says.
“So they’ll take small things that make them comfortable, but what we want to be able to do while we’re up there is ensure we maximise the opportunity together and that’s certainly not all going to be about football.
“Of an evening, that’s probably when everyone’s going to be missing home, so that’s when we’ll maximise those opportunities … we’re talking about board games and things to make sure people’s minds stay active and we really use that time to really bring the group together.”
But it’s all now subject to change.
Birch is unfazed by speculation that the Queensland hub could now last for a matter of days, not weeks with changing travel restrictions.
“That’s life today,” he says philosophically.
“In the COVID world, you have to be agile and things change sometimes daily.”
While Port Adelaide will use the South Port Sharks football club facilities, the Crows will mainly work out of Metricon Stadium, and of course, all their gym work done in the Mercure ballroom.
Birch praises the four clubs living in the Gold Coast hub for saving the season.
“To be honest, all the clubs have been fantastic in their approach,” he says.
“We’ve had lots of dialogue with them, and there’s never really been a point of contention that we haven’t been able to resolve.
“It’s a massive commitment and sacrifice by these four clubs to get the competition up and running to commit to move up here to allow the season to start.”
Originally published as What will life really be like for Port Adelaide and the Crows on the AFL’s Gold Coast hub?