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THE Bendigo Football-Netball League will look to its senior coaches to map out a lead-in plan if a 2020 season is given the green light.
The BFNL is hopeful of a late June-early July start and has a number of contingency dates in place for a shortened nine-round home and away season and finals series that could vary from two to four weeks.
While the BFNL has potential start and end date options to consider, it's also mindful of how much of a lead-in would be required for players if local football-netball is to be given the go-ahead in 2020 from the coronavirus shutdown.
One of the suggestions at a recent presidents meeting was a minimum two-week lead-in to round one.
"Players are off doing their own work at the moment, so with the break in the pre-season they've had and impact on match conditioning, we're going to need to have a look at some sort of mini pre-season before we start," BFNL manager Cameron Tomlins said on Wednesday.
"We'll go back to the senior coaches and look for some leadership in terms of what they think could be best suited for the players. The last thing we want to do is, for example, get an okay on a Friday and then get going on the Saturday without any sort of lead-up conditioning and then open the door to soft tissue injuries and so forth.
"We're realistic in we know there has to be some period of time that we can give the players some sort of mini pre-season that may involve one or two practice matches that helps our players be ready to go given they won't have had the months of conditioning from a normal pre-season."
The structure of BFNL matches if a season does get under way is also being discussed given the compromised preparation, with all training having been ceased since March 17.
"We may have to look at things like shortening quarters to help with the workload on players. I'm not saying that's going to happen, but they are all discussion points," Tomlins said.
Also being discussed by the BFNL and all AFLCV leagues is the AFL recommendation's for two stages of salary cap cuts by, firstly 50 per cent, and secondly, a further pro rata deduction based on how much of a season is played.
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