AFL 2021: Demons sent into quarantine to get season away
Melbourne players will quarantine at home ahead of an extended road trip across the country to keep the season alive. See the latest fixture moves.
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Melbourne will enter home quarantine at midday on Thursday in preparation to fly to Queensland on Saturday morning for their Metricon Stadium game against Gold Coast.
The Demons will then fly to Perth directly from Queensland and enter a week of hotel quarantine at the Joondalup Resort before taking on West Coast in Round 21.
The AFL on Thursday announced the sterile corridor that will allow the Demons to fly north and Port Adelaide to take on GWS at 3.10pm on Sunday at Metricon Stadium.
The Suns-Melbourne game will take place at 3.10pm on Saturday at Metricon Stadium.
Both Adelaide-based teams will return back to the state after Round 20 in anticipation of the Showdown clash at Adelaide Oval in Round 21.
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The Demons players will have to be in their homes in quarantine and their families will not be able to leave the house even to work or go to school.
It means players who want their families to escape their bubbles will spend Thursday and Friday night in hotels before flying to the Gold Coast on Saturday.
Former coronavirus cabinet member Eddie McGuire suggested on Footy Classified on Wednesday the Demons might still play Adelaide in Darwin in Round 22.
But the Demons plan to fly home from Perth and play that Round Round 22 clash against Adelaide at the MCG as scheduled.
It will give them time to sleep in their own beds at the back end of the home-and-away season before taking on Geelong at GMHBA Stadium in Round 23.
AFL fixture boss Travis Auld confirmed the sterile corridor had been established with Queensland.
“We thank the four clubs, broadcast partners, and the venue – Metricon Stadium – for their patience as we finalised details for the respective matches to be played on Saturday and Sunday,” he said.
“The health and safety of those in our game and the wider community remains paramount and we would like to thank the Queensland Government for their continued support of the 2021 Toyota AFL premiership season.
“Following their game on Saturday, Melbourne will travel from the Gold Coast to Western Australia to commence their quarantine period ahead of their Round 21 match against the West Coast Eagles.
“The two South Australian teams – the Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide – will return home to South Australia after their respective Round 20 matches this weekend.”
Brisbane has been scheduled to take on Hawthorn in Tasmania this weekend instead of playing the game in Melbourne, and Collingwood could fly to Launceston to play the Hawks in Round 21.
IMMENSE CHALLENGES AFL FACES KEEPING SEASON ALIVE
No one was popping Champagne corks at AFL House on Tuesday given they were still too busy counting the cost of this second season of financial pain.
But as Victoria emerged from another lockdown and the league finally brokered its deal to play in Tasmania and moved closer to establishing a “sterile corridor” into Queensland, a watershed moment was reached.
The AFL is now certain to finish its home-and-away season on time … if not anywhere near budget.
There have been many times this year the league could not have made that statement.
Even the worst-case scenario — with four rounds to play — is possible to overcome.
The AFL gets Round 20 and 21 away playing in Victoria, Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania.
Then if a Lockdown 6.0 were to hit Victoria, the league could finally use the Melbourne hub it has war-gamed for several months — flying as many teams as needed into Victoria to complete the final two weeks of the home-and-away season.
Empty stadiums would not be a deciding factor. The AFL has long given up on relocating games just because there are no crowds.
Despite having to alter 16 of 20 rounds in ways small and large so far, the league will guarantee its $400 million TV windfall from the season.
It will do it despite spending upwards of $60 million alone on hubs and charter flights in the back end of the home-and-away games.
That financial toll was again reinforced on Tuesday when Victorian premier Dan Andrews confirmed there would be no crowds at Melbourne games for at least the next two weeks.
The league will again lobby the government for a rapid rise of crowds past Round 22 but its well-meaning suggestions to the Victorian health department usually fall on deaf ears.
They will be told when they can have crowds by the Andrews government, and they will have to suck it up.
Remarkably, after last year’s financial armageddon clubs such as Collingwood will still make a modest profit despite the lack of gate takings this season.
But there are significant hits across the competition.
Consider the fallout from Round 19 alone as five Victorian games were played without crowds plus 43,657 at West Coast-St Kilda, 16,660 at Lions-Gold Coast, 2875 at Sydney-Fremantle and 2681 at Essendon-GWS.
In Round 19 two years ago the Magpies would have made a million bucks from a crowd of 78,722 against Richmond at the MCG, West Coast would have pulled in similar cash from 54,376 people attending Perth Stadium, and Sydney and Carlton also posted strong home crowds.
By this September it will be the AFL, instead of clubs, that begins absorbing those hits — given the league secures all ticketing revenue from its massively lucrative finals campaign.
The league says it will wait until grand Final week if it has to before making a decision to move the grand final away from the MCG.
That’s not strictly true.
Perth Stadium could host the on 48 hours’ notice, but if the league wanted to start a bidding war — which it is in the habit of doing — it would need weeks and weeks to whip rival state governments into a frenzy.
Last year it played off Adelaide Oval, Perth Stadium and The Gabba before it secured around $15 million in cash and significant government investment in Queensland footy for the grand final alone.
This year, it will hope to gradually increase ground capacities from 25 per cent for Round 22 to 50 per cent or more for finals — which are still 39 days away.
It doesn’t want to sell off its finals to Perth Stadium because it believes there is every chance teams such as Brisbane, Port Adelaide and West Coast will be able to host home finals at their own venues — even if Melbourne is under the pump again.
The more interesting question would be whether it might sell off games such as the Geelong-Melbourne preliminary final that would still draw 50,000 fans in Perth or Adelaide instead of play them at a barren MCG.
So the league might put a few bottles of sparkling white on ice — not the Bollinger of old — aware it is on the home stretch but still facing challenges ahead.
No guarantees of significant Vic crowds
The AFL is aware there are no guarantees it will be able to secure significant crowds at Melbourne games for the rest of the year despite the Victorian government ending lockdown on Tuesday.
Victorian Premier Dan Andrews made clear on Tuesday there would be no crowds for “at least two” weeks at the football as the state gradually emerges from lockdown.
The AFL is in close talks with the government and has lobbied throughout the season for increased crowds to allow more fans into games.
But the spate of community transmissions at AFL and rugby venues including AAMI Stadium means there are no guarantees the league will be able to have crowds for the final two home-and-away rounds of the season.
“The AFL acknowledges the Victorian sstate government decision to continue to play AFL matches without crowds over the next two weeks,” the league said in a statement on Tuesday.
“The health and wellbeing of the community has always been the priority.”
As the Herald Sun revealed this week, the starting point for crowds could be less than 25 per cent, with fans spread out across the entire stadium and wearing masks at all times.
Mr Andrews warned there would be no dramatic escalation to large crowds any time soon.
“There will be no crowd at the footy, no crowd at large events, theatres, all those sorts of gatherings for at least two weeks,” Mr Andrews said on Tuesday.
“Again, I know that is not necessarily news people want to hear, but there is significant good news in here and it has to be, and significant freedom, but we also have to be cautious, this has not gone away, it is under control, but it is obviously in our country.
“We just can’t have crowds at the footy, but we will be able to have crowds at the footy at some point. The question becomes how will they be spread out? How big will the crowd be?
“I think Victorians would expect us to look at those matters and we are in the context of Delta, in the context of this outbreak, in the context of that continuous learning process, because you learn from every case. You learn from every outbreak.”
“Ultimately, the biggest crowds will be once we get everyone through the vaccination and that’s some months away,” Mr Andrews said.
KEY STEPS TO ENSURING IS PLAYED IN VICTORIA
Sam Landsberger
Finals played at a largely empty MCG and a ruling that fans have to wear face masks could help return the AFL’s biggest day to Victoria.
The league is exploring contingency plans — including staging the entire nine-match September series in Perth — but ideally does not want to break its contract with the Victorian government for a second year in a row.
The state is expected to emerge from its fifth lockdown on Tuesday night but Premier Daniel Andrews will refuse to quickly unwind restrictions on mass gatherings because of low vaccination rates.
Only 502,000 Victorians — about 7 per cent — are fully vaccinated.
Footy crowds are likely to remain banned in Round 20.
When they do return, the starting point could be even lower than the 25 per cent capacity used after the last outbreak.
Recent transmissions of the virus at the MCG and AAMI Park have public health officials on edge about restoring pre-lockdown settings too quickly.
It seems inevitable that vaccine passports will be required to attend AFL games and most public places next year once the injections have been made available to everyone.
The fate of this year’s finals series hinges on the AFL and MCG convincing the state government it can safely host sizeable crowds in September.
There are just 59 sleeps (from Tuesday) until the , so the clock is ticking to secure certainty.
It is unclear what the threshold would be to justify staying in Victoria when Perth’s 60,000-seat stadium is available.
The league has secured accommodation in Western Australia for September but has not discussed the idea with Perth Stadium.
“We haven’t spoken to the AFL on that subject since last year,” stadium boss Mike McKenna said.
“I think they know what we can do … and we’re ready to have the conversation if needed.”
There is nothing in Perth Stadium’s diary because it is contractually required to remain available for the AFL in September.
McKenna said all the legwork on hosting a , such as staging the parade, events and hospitality functions, was completed last year.
The AFL’s top-two teams — Western Bulldogs (Marvel Stadium) and Geelong (GHMHBA Stadium) — will consider asking to play their home finals away from the MCG.
“We’ll certainly look at those options as a consideration, whether it’s a capacity issue or a non-Victorian team that we’re drawn against,” Dogs boss Ameet Bains said.
Cats coach Chris Scott said if the MCG was at reduced capacity then playing in Geelong was “as plain as the nose on your face”.
Scott said: “Me talking about it, does it help or hurt? I’m coming to the conclusion that it certainly doesn’t help. So I just appeal to common sense”.
But it’s understood the AFL would, again, be reluctant to let Victorian clubs host finals away from the ’G if it were available.
Sydney is also on track to host a final and will need a new home ground with New South Wales set to remain in lockdown.
The Swans have won four out of their past five games down the highway.
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