Clarence will resume training at Blundstone Arena until firm decision on TSL season is made

Being booted from their home fortress was a “kick in the guts” but Clarence coach Jeromey Webberley won’t be shifting the playing group to another ground just yet.

Clarence’s Oscar Paprotny is tackled by three Lauderdale players in a TSL match at Blundstone Arena last year. The Roos are unable to play at their home ground in 2020. Picture: LUKE BOWDEN

CLARENCE will use Blundstone Arena as its training base for the next month before making a decision on relocating if the TSL season is given the green light.

The Roos were rocked last week when they were told their home fortress would be unavailable for football in 2020 due to “infrastructure complications” from the COVID-19 crisis.

The club resumes training tonight in staggered groups of 10, but will be unable to use the entire ground — the centre square is roped off — as well as have no goalposts for the next four weeks.

Coach Jeromey Webberley conceded it was not an ideal situation, but will not look to shift the playing group until an official decision on a start date for the State League season is made.

“At this stage we have planned to train at Bellerive until July 6, that obviously takes us to about a month or three weeks with groups of 20s, so we still think you could run training on Bellerive until such time,” Webberley said.

“There’s probably a number of options [on alternate venues], we are just waiting on one, what the season looks like and two, what are the other competition’s doing.

Clarence coach Jeromey Webberley. Picture: SOLSTICE DIGITAL

“Obviously if we go to Geilston Bay, are OHA playing? There’s sort of a question mark there on what they are doing.

“So what nights can we train, those kind of things is probably limited around what other competitions are going ahead and we don’t know if ours is yet.

“It’s a little bit hard to lock away venues at the moment.”

Webberley said being told the club’s home ground was off limits for matches was a “kick in the guts” but is confident it will have little impact if a reduced season can unfold.

TSL presidents met with AFL Tasmania and the AFL last Friday, with optimism a 12-round fixture and three week finals series can be staged.

“It’s obviously a bit of a kick in the guts, but I suppose it’s the situation with the COVID virus, hands are tied a little bit, there’s nothing we can do about it.

“We’ve caught up with Cricket Tasmania and we’ve also caught up with the council and all of us are working through other avenues.

“It’s not like our working relationship with Blundstone hasn’t been great, it’s been fantastic, just unfortunate this time some things have stood in our way.

“It is what it is, that’s the reality and we’ve got to just deal with it now.”