With another week of football allowed to go ahead, once again there has been curveballs thrown for clubs across the competition to navigate.
The extension and subsequent curfew of the Melbourne lockdown has thrown selection plans into chaos for some clubs, while the prospect of no finals crowds continues to hang over the league’s head with one round to play.
Premier Daniel Andrews decision earlier this week to add an extra fortnight to Melbourne’s restrictions is inadvertently set to rob the league of some star power come finals times.
The likes of North Warrnambool’s Tyrone Vickery, Camperdown’s Jack Williams, Portland’s Jake Edwards, plus others are all set to miss at least the first week of finals, assuming their teams play.
It’s disappointing for some clubs to not be able to fully access their top-end talent, but given the nature of the season, it’s just another obstacle the league must overcome.
The Melbourne shutdown and New South Wales lockdown has impacted other leagues across the state significantly, some to the point where they may not have played games for the best part of a month (and for some even longer) due to restrictions.
We need to be appreciative and consider ourselves extremely lucky of the fact that we will get 13 home and away games completed and then hopefully an uninterrupted finals series.
In a perfect world, we hope the restrictions are eased and we can enjoy country footy at its purest once again – with our best talent and our strongest teams in front of our passionate supporters.
