The Barnard Street end of the ground and patches on the pool side wing have been badly affected by Bendigo’s wet winter and the heavy workolad the ground endures.

With Bendigo expected to cop more heavy rain this weekend, Oliver admitted the league had thought about moving Sunday’s first semi-final, before deciding the QEO remained the best option.

“The forecast for the weekend has actually improved,’’ Oliver said.

“Yesterday the forecast said an 80 per cent chance of 20-40mm and now it’s back to 10-20mm.

“We don’t have too many viable alternatives given the state of the other grounds.

“We can’t make any judgement calls on what might happen with the weather. The council has drained the ground in order to cope with a bit more rain and the covers have been out as well.

“At this stage everything will go ahead this weekend as scheduled.’’

In last weekend’s two senior finals 32 of the 55 goals were kicked at the drier city end of the ground.

“We had a lot of people suggest last week we shouldn’t have played on the QEO and in the end it played out okay,’’ Oliver said.

“I’m confident we will be fine this weekend.’’