THE Bendigo Bank Bendigo Football-Netball League board was yesterday remaining comfortable with its decision to postpone the weekend’s semi-finals.
The BFNL board met for 45 minutes on Saturday morning before reaching the decision that in the best interests of the Queen Elizabeth Oval surface, player safety and spectator comfort, its first and second semi-finals be delayed until this weekend.
Bendigo was hit with 50.6mm of rain on Friday night-Saturday morning, while the Bureau of Meteorology was also forecasting more thunderstorms for Saturday when the board met at 9.30am.
“We know there’s some inconvenience and our preference would have been to play, without any shadow of a doubt,’’ BFNL chief executive officer Steven Oliver said yesterday.
“I went for a drive on Saturday afternoon and certainly saw some of the carnage around the region in regards to the rain, so we’re very comfortable with the decision we made.’’
The ramifications of the weekend’s semi-finals being postponed are:
> Golden Square and Eaglehawk will now play their second semi-final at the QEO this Saturday night;
> South Bendigo and Maryborough will play their first semi-final at Golden Square’s Country Vet Oval this Saturday afternoon;
> The preliminary final will be shifted to Saturday, September 18, with the league considering changing it from a night to day game to avoid a clash with an AFL preliminary final; and
> The grand final will be played on Sunday, September 26 – the day after the AFL grand final.
The Michelsen Medal count will remain this Sunday at the All Seasons Quality Resort.
The full schedule for this weekend’s football and netball semi-finals will be released today.
In confirming the decision to the Bendigo Advertiser on Saturday morning, Oliver said: “The ground was touch-and-go.
“It could have catered for an inch-and-a-half of rain with the verti-draining that had been done on it.
“But having already had more than two inches by the time I got to the ground this morning, and with more rain forecast to come tonight, it means the ground would have chopped up really badly.
“So the board has made a really tough decision in postponing the games until next week.
“We understand we will have some logistical challenges next week with our volunteers and clubs who may have multiple sides in that have to play at different venues, but we believe this decision we have taken is the best for players, spectators and for the ground.’’
Another issue confronting the BFNL was the travel factor for Maryborough, which had its senior and reserves teams playing at the weekend.
Many of the roads surrounding Maryborough were hit by the heavy rain.
“Maryborough had some concerns with physically getting here as there are some roads cut off out that way,’’ Oliver said.
“Obviously, plans had been made for the season to end with the grand final on September 18, but we can’t control the weather and how much rain we receive.’’
The BFNL finals to be played at Golden Square this Saturday afternoon will clash with the Loddon Valley Football League grand final at nearby Backhaus Oval.
“That’s not ideal for us or Loddon Valley, but obviously, we would like the circumstances to be different,’’ Oliver said.
“We’ve now got to move forward and try to make the best of it as we can.’’
This isn’t the first time the BFNL has been forced to postpone finals because of the wet weather.
The 1962 second semi-final between Rochester and Kyneton at the QEO had to be postponed for a week because of heavy rain the previous day.
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