Coronavirus border wars: teams hit the road to restart season

As Melbourne experiences a second wave of coronavirus, more than 200km north dozens of communities are divided.

Driven to train: Nick Osborne, left, coach Bill Puckett, Nakita Goegan and Cooper Sorrenti from the Cobram Roar Football Club. Picture: Simon Dallinger

As the Victorian capital experiences a second wave of coronavirus outbreaks, more than 200km north dozens of communities are now divided by two very different sets of rules.

Those living on the southern side of the state border are undergoing increasingly tightened COVID-19 restrictions, while their neighbours north of the imaginary divide are seeing their own public health orders wound back.

It is a situation the members of the Cobram Roar Football Club know only too well, and from next week the club’s adult soccer players will begin travelling from their native Victoria to nearby Albury to restart contact training under NSW’s relaxed restrictions.

Cobram Roar Football Club senior coach Bill Puckett said the team had been conducting non-contact training from early this month, but wanted to return to its regular training routine to ensure players were in top condition for the competition season.

“We’re keen to get back to contact tracing, which our NSW counterparts can do from 1st of July, but we can’t,” he said.

“We’re going to have to be ­driving for hours to get to Albury to train. I’ll come home after a 10- hour shift and then jump in the car. It’s frustrating to have these ­restrictions that are the same here as what they have in Melbourne.”

From next Wednesday, all community sports will be allowed to resume competitions as part of NSW’s eased coronavirus restrictions. In Victoria, full-contact sport training and competitions is still off the cards, but scheduled to return mid-next month, subject to the advice of the state’s Chief Health Officer.

Cobram Roar women’s league captain Nakita Goegan said despite­ the 90-minute drive each way, the team was excited to be able to cross the state border and resume training.

“It’s been difficult even trying to get accepted to train on a field in NSW,’’ she said. “We have already been declined from playing on one NSW field because we were from Victoria. It will be great to be physical again and be around people­ after so many months off.

“I think when contact comes back into place, club morale will really pick up again.”

Albury-Wodonga Football Association president Mark Leman said community sports in border towns had suffered from the two sets of coronavirus restrictions.

“The border has been ignored in a lot of ways, with lots of metro-centric decision-making which has an impact on our daily lives. We’ve got lots of sports in the same position as us,” he said. “Why can’t two state bodies make a united ­decision?­ … It’s frustrating because we’ve had over 80 days of no cases … but we’re penalised for poor behavi­our in the metro area.”