BFNL - Melbourne travel restrictions forces Kyneton to forfeit seniors and reserves games this weekend

KYNETON will forfeit its senior and reserves BFNL games this Saturday, with the unavailability of the Tigers' Melbourne contingent of players leaving them facing a severe numbers shortage.

The Tigers are scheduled to play Sandhurst at the Queen Elizabeth Oval in what will be the re-start of the BFNL, which hasn't played since July 10 due to a second COVID lockdown interruption.

Following a lengthy board meeting on Monday night the league confirmed on Tuesday it would resume this Saturday with round 17, but games will be played with Victorian restrictions still in place that not only ban spectators from attending games, but Melbourne-based players will be unavailable.

While regional Victoria came out of lockdown Monday night, Melbourne will remain in lockdown until at least 11.59pm on Thursday, August 19, ruling out Melbourne-based players from travelling and being available this weekend.

Kyneton president Hayden Evans said on Wednesday with 20 footballers unavailable due to the Melbourne travel restrictions the club didn't have sufficient numbers to field a full quota of teams against the Dragons.

As such, only the under-18 footballers will play. With coach Damien Zanic based in Melbourne, the Tigers' under-18s will instead be led by senior coach Paul Chapman.

"We're just too decimated and, unfortunately, won't be playing senior or reserves this week," Evans said.

"With our Melbourne-based players unavailable, as well as who is out injured, it leaves us with only nine reserves players and 13 senior players to pick from.

"Last time we played without our Melbourne players (against Gisborne on June 12) we had seven under-18 players push up into the reserves and we had to borrow five players from Woodend on permit, which we can't do this time being after June 30.

"Our preference is to make sure our kids still get a game, so we're going to play the under-18s and have Chappy coach them, which will be a great experience for them.

"We can't physically field our senior and reserves football teams, but we're still going to make sure the kids get a game because they're not affected by the metro travel rule."

Evans said the club had made the forfeit decision on Wednesday morning.

"It's a terrible decision for us to have to make as a club, but we feel it's out of our hands," Evans said.

"Unfortunately, we've had no correspondence from the league on this. We've been told we're going back to play this week, but no correspondence in terms of a direction or potential solutions as to how we can resolve the metropolitan travel rule affecting our numbers this Saturday.

"With no solutions, we see the most viable option for us as a club is not to play senior and reserves football, but ensure our kids still get the chance to participate because we don't want them to miss out.

"It's a shame to be in this position, but it would have been nice to have been able to discuss it with the league about what they'd be willing to do to help us."

Both the Tigers' seniors (7th, 3-8) and reserves (8th, 2-9) are out of finals calculations.

There hasn't been a forfeit in a BFNL senior game since Northern United forfeited against Sandhurst in round two of 1996 before the Swallows went into recess soon after.

With Kyneton's decision to forfeit, it means another extra week without playing for Sandhurst's seniors and reserves teams, which now will have had 42 days between games when they - hopefully - return against Gisborne on August 21.

Meanwhile, while Gisborne will also be heavily impacted by losing access to its Melbourne contingent of players, the Bulldogs will field all their required teams against Maryborough at Princes Park.

The Bulldogs will only need to field two football teams, though, with the Magpies without an under-18 team.

Gisborne will have 10 senior players who played in their last game - a 90-point win over Kangaroo Flat - unavailable due to the travel restrictions.

"We'll have some reserves and under-18s boys go up to fill the void in the seniors," Gisborne president John Wood said.

"Basically, we're ready to go this weekend and we've then got to absolutely keep our fingers, toes and everything else crossed that we come out of lockdown next week so we get our metro guys back.

"It won't be ideal though because if we come out of lockdown on the Thursday night they won't have trained with the group since we went into this recent lockdown and they'd be going into a game against Sandhurst having not played since July 10.

"Because of the situation, it's not a fair season, but we've just got to grin and bear it and do the best we can."

The BFNL season has now become heavily compromised with four home and away rounds lost.

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