Clarence still has hopes of keeping Blundstone Arena as its home venue

Clarence believes it was blindsided when it was told it could not host matches at its home ground this season, but the Roos are not giving up yet.

Clarence footballers (L-R) Captain Brady Jones, Jack Preshaw, Coach Jeromey Webberley and Ethan Jackson at Blundstone Arena. Picture: CHRIS KIDD

CLARENCE is in for the fight to return to its home ground, Blundstone Arena, this season.

Despite the ground being Clarence’s home since 1884 when it was the Bellerive Football Club, the Roos were told this week by venue operator Cricket Tasmania, it would not be able to host home games due to the inability to remove cricket sightscreens for goalposts to be erected.

The Roos chief executive Richard Mulligan said the club had held positive talks with the Clarence City Council on a range of options, but its first choice was to stay put should a truncated TSL season get underway.

Clarence chief executive Richard Mulligan.

“Where we play is to be determined and that’s a matter for further consultation and discussion with other clubs and AFL Tasmania and we’ll continue doing that,’ Mulligan said.

“But we are still looking at Blundstone as our first option and we’ll keep pursuing that until we get to the point where it may or may not be possible.

“It is more the impact on the club itself overall.

“We’ve got the women’s team and the under-18s etc.

“We are hopeful we can do all that at Blundstone.”

CT said on Friday the electronic sightscreens that include LED advertising can only be removed by a company from Sydney for insurance reasons, and that company was unable to travel to Tasmania due to border restrictions in place.

Mulligan said he was fully aware of the infrastructure issues facing CT.

“I understand the issue with the sightscreens, but I think cricket now has to look at options for avoiding that ever happening again,” he said.

“We’ll be talking to them about that next week hopefully.”

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CT was contacted for comment.

AFL Tasmania spokesman Damian Gill said the situation was “unfortunate and unavoidable” while Clarence Council Mayor Doug Chipman also hoped the situation with the goalposts could be resolved.

“If they [AFL Tasmania] decide to have a season this year, a lot will be depending on when it starts, it may even depend on whether or not in the meantime Cricket Tasmania can get the goalposts in,” Chipman said.

“If there is a July start, they might have that problem solved, you never know.”

It is understood the club has engaged lawyer and former player, president and life member Roger Curtis, to provide legal advice on the issue and to review its sublease with CT.

The Roos only became aware they were to be punted from their home ground when coach Jeromey Webberley was talking to the ground’s curator about resumption of training on Monday.

Mulligan was fuming when he became aware of the situation and wrote a message to his board calling it “the most outrageous, arrogant and standover message the club has probably ever received.”

But he said discussions with CT would continue this week.

“The relationship has always been good,” he said.

“It was just extremely disappointing we found out the way we did which will hopefully be resolves and won’t happen again.”