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LIKE its senior competitions, AFL Central Victoria is keenly anticipating the second week of May in the hope of getting a clearer picture of how a 2020 season could be staged for its junior players.
While there remains uncertainty around 2020 seasons and start-up dates at all levels, AFLCV regional manager Carol Cathcart says the juniors offer some increased flexibility in comparison to senior competitions.
"We're really keen to get something up for our juniors this year, but once again it will be around the guidelines that the government puts out," Cathcart said on Saturday.
"We think though that the juniors are a little bit different (to senior competitions) in that they can be scheduled differently, if you need more time between games to have people come and go then that's possible, if you have to use more grounds then that could be possible, too.
"There's so many different ways that we can do things with our juniors in regards to their flexibility given junior clubs don't all play on the same venue at the same day.
"The BJFL is a different organisation to the senior competitions with different expectations from its members and doesn't have to align with the senior leagues."
There's so many different ways that we can do things with our juniors in regards to their flexibility
- Carol Cathcart
Long-time BJFL secretary John Hewitt says the league is hopeful of not just running a junior season this year, but one with crowds.
"That is our hope and intention because the junior players are so important to the future of the game," Hewitt said.
"So we certainly hope we'll be able to get things going, but we just have to wait on information from the powers that be."
BJFL age groups for 2020 range from under-9s through to under-18 girls, with the first games originally scheduled for the weekend of April 17-18-19.
May 11 shapes as a pivotal date for community football-netball leagues when the pathway for 2020 is expected to become clearer by the government, health authorities and AFL Victoria.
Meanwhile, the AIS Framework for rebooting sport in a COVID-19 environment was released on Friday.
Included in it is a three-stage training pathway for the return of community and professional sport.
For community football, the three stages are:
Level A (currently) - solo running, resistance and skills training, such as handballing against a wall.
Level B - Controlled kicking, marking and handball drills. No tackling/wrestling, contact, body on body drills. Small groups of no more than 10.
Level C - Full training and competition with consideration to maintaining some small group separation, such as mids, forwards and backs.
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