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THE Bendigo Football-Netball League is continuing to dig deep to try to salvage a 2020 season, but it's still kicking into a stiff breeze and is behind on the scoreboard.
However, while conditions are getting tougher, the league hasn't given up hope of fighting back against the odds and still getting a condensed season under way - albeit after copping another hip and shoulder.
The prospect of getting crowds of a minimum of 500 into games any time soon took a hit when the state government in response to a rise in COVID-19 cases last weekend announced the state of emergency in Victoria would extend to July 19, while the league was again filled with uncertainty around when senior full-contact training and competition could begin.
The state government on July 14 announced that full-contact senior training could begin from July 13 and competition from July 20.
But those dates were rescinded earlier this week when the Department of Health and Human Services stated: "Further announcements on return to contact training and full-contact competition for adults will be made in July."
Losing the clarity around those return-to-competition dates left the BFNL again in limbo and stiffened the breeze it was kicking into, before it was able to peg a couple of much-needed goals back on Wednesday afternoon.
The July 13 full-contact training and July 20, which is a Monday, competition start dates for senior sport have since been reaffirmed, which keeps the BFNL's door open for a potential start on Saturday, July 25.
With the Cricket Victoria-AFL Victoria agreement allowing local football priority access to grounds up until Sunday, October 18, to get nine home and away rounds and a traditional four week finals series would need a start date of July 25.
Every week beyond the July 25 date eats into the length of the season possible for the BFNL to the extent that once the calendar hits August 15 that doesn't leave any time beyond nine rounds of games to adhere to the October 18 football-cricket agreement.
With the July 13 and 20 dates again reinstated, what's imperative now for the BFNL in plotting its next course of action are the match-day protocols from AFL Victoria and Netball Victoria and what will be required of club volunteers.
"A lot of the information that the league and clubs require to make a decision will be contained in the documents from AFL Victoria and Netball Victoria relating to return to match-day, which is what we're waiting on," BFNL manager Cameron Tomlins said on Wednesday.
"Our clubs are really clear that just as important as the information around crowds and what level of involvement that may be is what will be the burden on volunteers to co-ordinate match-days?
"Obviously, we're going to need to have crowds in some form, but clubs are conscious of the effort it's going to take from their hard-working volunteers and that's certainly high on their radar. So we're still awaiting that information."
Tomlins says clubs are particularly keen to get an understanding of their match-day responsibilities, such as if spectators were to be segregated in groups of, say 10 for example, how and by who is that enforced.
"This is something we've never experienced before and there's going to be a lot of questions, so we also need to make sure we give our clubs enough time to be prepared because it's not going to be just as simple as running out in round one," Tomlins said.
"We've been strong throughout the process that we'll continue to consult with our clubs and leave all the options on the table for as long as we possibly can."
We've been strong throughout the process that we'll continue to consult with our clubs and leave all the options on the table for as long as we possibly can
- Cameron Tomlins - BFNL manager
An AFL Victoria spokesman indicated to the Bendigo Advertiser on Wednesday a return-to-play document was on the cusp of being released to leagues.
"As part of the document there is protocols relating to return-to-play, what happens if there's a positive case, hygiene, first aid personnel, trainers, equipment ect, which will hopefully provide a lot of guidance to clubs and leagues," the spokesman said.
The BFNL is the last of the four senior football-netball leagues in the AFL Central Victoria region still a chance of playing this year, with Heathcote District (May 21), North Central (June 4) and Loddon Valley (June 11) all having made the decisions to abandon 2020.
Should the BFNL season make a start, there is an in-principle agreement among clubs that to help ease the financial strain there will be no match payments for players, but that's still to be made official.
"It's not officially signed off on yet and there's a few things we're still working on, but in principle there's an agreement between the clubs and league that the way forward for us this year is to remove player payments," Tomlins said.
Meanwhile, Tomlins reiterated that none of the league's 10 clubs had indicated they don't intend to participate this year should a season get started.
"We have said to clubs that it won't be compulsory to play if they don't feel a season will be sustainable," Tomlins said.
"That will be their decision and we won't force anyone to compete.
"We're doing our best to offer the opportunity to compete this year, but we understand that there may be a situation where we could have multiple grades of competition impacted because we just don't have the numbers anymore due to the available player pool.
"That has been an on-going discussion throughout."
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