“We know as the situation continues to evolve, we need to remain agile and flexible, to be able to adapt where necessary.” The AFL chief executive, Gillon McLachlan, spoke these words not this week after the positive Covid-19 test at Essendon but almost six weeks ago, prophesising Australian sport’s need for the greatest of all administrative crutches: the contingency plan. With Victoria’s surging second wave making its presence felt on professional sport, the time for back-up is now.
In the AFL, one match – Essendon versus Melbourne – has been postponed indefinitely, with two Bombers players, Conor McKenna and James Stewart, now isolating for two weeks. In the NRL, Melbourne Storm cannot get out of Victoria fast enough, setting up camp in Sydney ahead of their “home” match this Friday against the Warriors, with a longer stay in Queensland likely to come. The A-League season is set to resume in Melbourne on 16 July but the code is “maintaining a watching brief” with the spike in Victoria poised to wreak havoc on the playing schedule.
If this is just the start of the disruption – the second instalment, that is, after the first that paused sport for more than two months – with more almost certain to come, the question begs: how much disturbance can sport take before enough is enough? Agility and flexibility in uncertain times are all well and good, but every dam wall has a breaking point. Is there a point stumps will be drawn on Australia’s winter codes, and is that point closer than we think?
Even if McKenna has subsequently tested negative, as is being reported, the scare sends a timely reminder of what can go wrong, and the level of vigilance required to keep the threat at bay.
The events of recent days show the road to normality is littered with risk. Underlining the struggle confronting sport, the easing of Covid-19 restrictions has witnessed Victorians being handed an inch and taking the full mile. “We have seen many families, large families, that have gathered in numbers beyond the rules,” said the premier, Daniel Andrews. “That is just not on. I know and understand that all Victorians want this to be over, but we simply can’t pretend the virus is gone.”
The rest of the country is taking notice. The New South Wales premier, Gladys Berejiklian, will keep borders with Victoria open but wants her residents to give the state’s hotspots a wide berth. South Australia is reconsidering its decision to reopen its border. In New Zealand, the lifting of social and economic restrictions precipitated nine new cases on Monday after the country had gone three weeks straight with no infections. Infection rates globally are again on the rise. If sport in Australia is to remain exposed in the community, it cannot hope to be immune.
While rugby league flirted with NRL Island as a means to eradicate the risk of community spread, and the AFL has embraced its hub concept, neither code has managed to isolate players and staff from at least minimal contact with society. In the week McKenna tested positive to Covid-19, the AFL had announced an easing of social restrictions on players. Those restrictions – golf, surfing, limited house visits – are now firmly back in place, along with stricter regulations surrounding contact at training. But as the McKenna case has proven – the Irishman flouted regulations by visiting open house inspections as well as his foster family – unless some players are chained down, they cannot be trusted.
Perhaps a lesson can be learned in England. The country’s cricketers, along with the touring West Indies team, will live, train and play in a “biosecure bubble” at the Ageas Bowl to safeguard the first Test, segregated from society and their loved ones. Such a move has been rejected in Australia, mainly by the powerful players’ associations on the grounds it is unreasonable to expect players to spend extended periods of time away from their families. It’s just another tug of war created by Covid-19 – the economic and health imperatives competing with one another – but if things get worse, Australian sport might well have to think outside the square and inside the bubble.
As the year wears on, and the uncertainty surrounding Covid-19 showing no signs of improving, the logistical hurdles standing in the way of sport will grow taller: border restrictions, quarantine periods, constant travel, stadium availability, compromised fixtures. The winter codes have expressed an openness to play deep into 2020, but the logistical challenges of going beyond October would be enormous. Notwithstanding the competing needs of cricket and the touring Indians this summer, Covid-19’s shifting landscape could see Australia’s footy codes simply run out of days. If the signs are right, if Australia is on the verge of a second wave, the fight to play on might be taken out of their hands.
Administrators, for their part, are talking the right game. “We said at the outset of this crisis that we would make all decisions based on medical advice and our priority is the health and safety of our players, staff and the wider community. We need to do the right thing,” McLachlan said this week. The ARLC chairman, Peter V’landys, said: “The level of sacrifice by players, officials and their families has been significant and has demonstrated the absolute commitment of all involved to protect their own health, the health of the game and that of the wider community.”
Much of the wider community V’landys speaks of has likely struggled to square this rhetoric with Australian sport’s determination to push on through Covid-19. If the McKenna incident proves to be the tip of the iceberg, no number of contingencies will save the dam wall from breaking.
