AFL restart: Port Adelaide and Crows praised for making Gold Coast trek

Port Adelaide’s Travis Boak has no issues with relocating to the Gold Coast for at least six weeks in order to allow the AFL season to restart.

Port Adelaide midfielder Travis Boak, a keen surfer, has no issues with relocating to the Gold Coast for the restart of the AFL season. Picture: Dean Martin

A keen surfer, former Port Adelaide captain Travis Boak has no issues with relocating to the Gold Coast for at least six weeks in order to allow the AFL season to restart.

“Winter on the Goldy won’t be so bad. Footy is back,” the Torquay-raised footballer said on Thursday.

Whether Boak will be able to ride his surfboard, or even get his golf clubs out, is one of the issues the AFL is still working through given strict COVID-19 guidelines.

But for a 31-year-old facing the very real prospect of playing no more football at all this season after the shutdown in March, the chance to kick the Sherrin again is clearly welcome, particularly in warmer weather. Boak will be among the footballers from South Australia who will relocate to the Gold Coast by May 25, the date full training will begin before the AFL’s restart date of June 11.

How long the Power and Adelaide Crows players are based there is still uncertain, with the AFL adopting a floating fixture in the hope border restrictions will ease through winter.

West Coast and Fremantle footballers will be able to complete their preparations for the resumption of the 2020 season at home before flying to the Gold Coast for at least a month due to an exemption granted by the WA government on Wednesday.

Footballers from the four relocating teams were briefed on Wednesday by the AFL Players Association and also by their own club support staff about the challenges that lie ahead for them.

AFLPA chief executive Paul Marsh praised the players for sacrificing the comforts of home for a period to ensure the season was able to resume.

As a result, it will allow at least a portion of employees who were stood down at clubs across the country, as well as the AFL, to return to work in coming months.

“They have had to adapt really quickly. I think they have been incredibly resilient on this issue,” Marsh said. “They don’t have a lot of choice at the moment … but they are going to get on to it.”

A significant concession that helped convince players to relocate is the fact the AFL will cover the costs of family members who wish to enter the “villages” at the Royal Pines and Palm Meadows golf resorts. As Marsh pointed out, the option will not suit every player given some of their partners work, while others have children who are in school. But West Coast’s football manager Craig Vozzo said the concession was important and would ease concerns for those players who wished to have their families with them.

“We are proud that our players and staff are making a sacrifice for the greater good,” Vozzo said.

“Our priority is health and wellbeing and we are confident the players will be able to use the facilities (golf course) at Royal Pines, rather than being in a quarantine lockdown situation.

“They are not going to be sitting in a room for a month and leaving to play.’’

Gold Coast defender Rory Thompson expressed sympathy for his peers who are uprooting their lives for a period to base themselves in southeast Queensland. But he feels their presence in the region and the fact games will be played regularly at Metricon Stadium and the Gabba in Brisbane will be a significant bonus.

“It’s obviously good for us and good for sport on the Gold Coast, having those big teams come and stay up here,” Thompson said.