Three of Strathfieldsaye's most promising young footballers have moved north to Queensland to play football.
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With COVID-19 forcing the cancellation of senior football in Bendigo, James Schischka, Riley Wilson and Riley Clarke have taken up an opportunity to play with Port Douglas in the AFL Cairns competition.
The trio, who were team-mates at the Bendigo Pioneers last year, have been joined by Tyson Milne, the son of former St Kilda and Strathfieldsaye forward Stephen Milne.
The quartet were aligned with VFL clubs this year - Schischka and Wilson (Essendon), Clarke (Collingwood) and Milne (Sandringham).
They're currently halfway through a 14-day quarantine period at a hotel in Cairns.
"Originally, we wanted to play in the QAFL, but that league made a rule where they weren't accepting players from Victoria,'' Schischka said.
"Next option was to go further north. Last Friday we got a call at 2pm to say that if we wanted to play we needed to be on the plane at 6am the next day.
"I said "yes" straight away and took the opportunity.
"It's good to get out of Victoria with what's happening at the moment and it's a good chance to play some footy and keep fit."
AFL Cairns has a 14-round competition, which kicked off on July 11.
Port Douglas has the bye in round two this weekend, so the Bendigo trio are keen to play in round three next Saturday.
"We get out of quarantine on Friday and, hopefully, we get to play on Saturday,'' Schischka said.
"Apparently the competition up here has really improved. We did get to watch a little bit of a game last week that was live streamed and the standard looked pretty good.
"I'm looking forward to it."
First challenge is to get through the 14 days of quarantine.
"It's hard to get in some workouts while we're in quarantine, but the footy club dropped off a couple of footys and some weights, so that will help keep us busy,'' Wilson said.
"It's not great being stuck in a room, but it is nice to look out the window each morning knowing that it's fine weather and 22 or 23 degrees.
"Knowing that we get to play some footy at the end of it is keeping us going.
"We've basically been doing pre-season training since November last year, so it will be great to actually play a few games.
"The grand final is on October 31, so hopefully we play in that and then we'll pretty much straight back into pre-season training in Victoria again."
Wilson said the decision to move north was made easier by the fact he had team-mates to go with.
"It makes it easier to have a few guys up here that you know,'' he said.
"It's going to be a good life experience and we get to play footy while we're here."
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