Brendan Lines June 19, 2020

Port Adelaide have begun their journey north to the Gold Coast hub for their round three clash with Fremantle, just minutes after reports emerged South Australia will lift border restrictions to travellers from Queensland, Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley says he will take his squad bolstered by returning vice-captain Ollie Wines with the certainty of playing all three games as planned.

Port Adelaide vice captain Ollie Wines – Image: SEN

Hinkley spoke to the media before boarding the team bus to Adelaide Airport this morning from Alberton.

“I think for us it’s pretty simple, we’re going up there with some certainty in our own minds for three games, and we’re going to go up there to play well in those three games,” he said.

“We’re not going to get distracted by anything other than we’re preparing to play footy, all the other stuff will take care of itself and has done all the way throughout the pandemic.”

The lifting of restrictions means travellers can come into South Australia from Queensland without serving 14 days isolation, potentially leaving the door open for travel back and forth between games for the club.

However it’s unlikely as the AFL has locked away the fixture for rounds three, four and five regardless of the changes on restrictions.

Amid the changes, Port bring in Wines off a promising trial match last weekend as he served his one match suspension for breaching AFL COVID-19 guidelines.

“It was an easy decision for us in the end that he gets to play a game of football and he’s in really good form and he’s our vice captain, so he comes back into the team,” Hinkley said.

Wines will join Port Adelaide’s mid-field along side in-form Connor Rozee, in an effort to gain the edge Hinkley is looking for in the opening minutes of the shortened quarters.

“We think collectively we need to be really sharp at the start of games and we haven’t quite got that right in our first two games this year,” he said.

Where rivals Adelaide are taking a full squad, Hinkley has elected to take a reduced squad of 32 leaving 12 players behind to work on development, a strategy Hinkley says is borrowed from the club’s games played in China with a squad of 26 players.

“We’ve gone over there (China) with a performance based opportunity for us and that’s what we’ve taken into the Gold Coast, we need to go there and play well and win games of AFL football, So we feel like we’ve got people up there ready to play and can help us straight away.” he said.

There’s some good news for the 400 Port fans on the Gold Coast who have continued their pledge to the club, as Metricon Stadium has confirmed a crowd of 300 will be allowed at Sunday’s match, offering a portion of available tickets to Port Adelaide.

Brendan Lines 18/6/2020

Port Adelaide is making some serious noise during its time at the top of the AFL ladder, overnight the club’s petition to wear the famous ‘Prison Bar’ guernsey raised over 17 000 signatures, buoyed by the support and recent form on the field, General Manager of Football Chris Davies has today hit back at recent criticism toward South Australia from ‘over the border.’

Port Adelaide Football manager Chris Davies – Image: Daily Telegraph

It’s rare the worlds of football and politics collide, but this morning at Alberton Port Adelaide’s Football manager hit-back at Victorian premier Daniel Andrews saying ’Maybe he’s got some things on his plate to worry about.’

A former South Australian first-class cricketer, Davies hinted perhaps Mr. Andrew’s own political ‘spin’ might not add up to his Victorian compatriots.

“Daniel might be the best spinner to come out of Victoria since Shane Warne, minus the 700 Test and 300 One-Day international wickets,” he said.

Davies went on to highlight the work done by the South Australian government allowing two thousand fans into last week’s Showdown.

“Clearly last week with what our Premier and the South Australian Government was able to do getting two thousand people into the Adelaide Oval was a fantastic thing, let’s hope that footy can continue to bring people back through the turnstiles,” Davies said.

“Victoria has got to carry it’s weight at some point soon.”

But Port Adelaide is firmly focused on the sphere of football as the club now prepares to travel to the Gold Coast hub to join rivals Adelaide and WA opponents West Coast and Fremantle on Friday.

Davies says Port will leave twelve players from its list back in Adelaide.

“We’ll leave twelves players here that will concentrate solely through that period on their development,” he said.

“We’ll have enough coaches and high performance staff, Doctors and those types of people around them to make sure they are well looked after.”

Surprisingly, Ryan Burton will not be one of those players remaining at Alberton, Davies says Burton will complete his rehabilitation from knee surgery on the Gold Coast.

“He’ll (Burton) do his rehab up there, just in the hope if there is potential for him probably in that last game against Brisbane,” he said.

With recent easing of border restrictions coming into effect earlier this week and full opening scheduled for July 20th, Davies is certain it won’t affect the clubs preparations too much, as the future rounds of the 2020 fixture remain pending.

“We’re going to have to remain flexible through this period in order to make sure when borders open up wether they be South Australia or WA that the AFL will capitalise on making sure the fixture fits,” he said.

“There will be no point fixturing the next four or five weeks for our borders to change to the point where Victorian teams can come into South Australia, I think the AFL are doing the right thing.”

The biggest wave coming out of Alberton this morning is the club’s case to the AFL to wear the ‘Prison Bar’ guernsey at all future showdowns.

A campaign that began last night through a petition, as chairman David Koch put forward the club’s position.

“We don’t believe what we are asking for is unreasonable and we look forward to submitting our official proposal to the AFL soon,” he said.

As the number of signatures climbed above 17 000 this morning the club’s case appears to be gaining the traction it needs publicly, Davies says the club’s recent performance leaves nothing on the table in stating its case.

“I think we did the guernsey everything we possibly could on Saturday night, I think it’s the AFL’s decision to make,” he said.

“As we have said over the past couple of weeks it is an important moment for the club to stand up and make sure we present something to the AFL that has them compelled to allow us to wear it in showdowns into the future.”

Brendan Lines.   June 9th, 2020

The showdown that has defied a pandemic, as the only AFL game to be played within South Australian borders in the foreseeable future, has seen a build up of anticipation like no other, but Port Adelaide Captain Tom Jonas expects it will be a hard ‘reset’ for the club despite holding down top spot for the AFL’s 2020 season re-start. 

 Port Adelaide captain Tom Jonas – Image: PAFC

“To be honest it doesn’t really stand for much now, it’s basically a reset on the season, besides having little head start on the premiership table that’s as good as round one, going into showdown traditionally form means nothing, and we expect it to be a good showdown,” he said.

As easing of social distancing restrictions still loom potentially allowing fans to attend the Adelaide Oval showdown, the Port captain said it is one of the ‘strangest showdowns.’

“It’ll be up there with the first one at Adelaide Oval with a lot of unknowns surrounding it, but at the end of the day there’s going to be eighteen blokes on the field and there’s going to be a footy to be won,” Jonas said.

Yet Port Adelaide are taking every opportunity of their home ground advantage amid the anticipation.

If fans are allowed to attend this week’s showdown, Port Adelaide would welcome its fans out-number Adelaide fans ‘ten to one.’

But fans or no fans, Port Adelaide will proceed with it’s highly ritualised ‘Never Tear Us Apart’ war-cry as the team dons its Prison Bar guernseys for the occasion Jonas says.

“I think that’s part of the fabric of our home games now and I’d be disappointed if I didn’t hear that before the game it always sends a shiver down the spine,

“It’s part of our ritual and it means a lot to both players an supporters.”

As footage of a heated exchange involving former Port Adelaide tall-man Billy Frampton and his new Adelaide Crows team-mates surfaced over the weekend, Jonas says ‘it’s not unusual.’

“It’s not unusual in our industry, we’re obviously fiercely competitive and Bill has got a little bit of niggle in him, so no surprises something like that might happen at training but we’ve had our own scuffles from time to time, probably nothing that’s escalated to that level.” he said.

For both teams taking a win before travelling to their Gold Coast hub is imperative to prove match fitness and carry much needed form into rounds 3,4 and 5 matches.

“The team that is best prepared and can drive themselves will be the one that comes out on top,

“I think there’s plenty of ammo, we’re going to be saddling up next to the crows for two and a half weeks as of next Thursday , so it would be nice to hold one before going up there,” Jonas said.

 

 

Brendan Lines    May 22, 2020

The AFL and the South Australian Government have agreed to exemptions to fly-in umpires and broadcasters, allowing a ‘lock’ for the round 2 Showdown at Adelaide Oval to go ahead.

Port Adelaide captain Tom Jonas and Crows captain Rory Sloane at Adelaide Oval – Image: The Advertiser.

AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan’s ‘How we start is not how we will finish’ statement at last Friday’s 2020 season re-launch was fair warning at the time.

As both Adelaide teams have arrived at a very different place today — as doubts shrouded the possibility of the game going ahead in Adelaide last night.

The AFL will fly a cohort of umpires to Adelaide to serve mandatory 14-days quarantine in South Australia, in order to meet the shortage of only two qualified AFL umpires locally.

Broadcast technicians will be exempt to fly in, being allowed only travel to Adelaide Oval to provide coverage, commentators are not exempt.

Fortunately, broadcasters have kept their South Australian TV crews at the ready through JobKeeper, who are now trained in the appropriate COVID-19 protocols.

Fox Sports earlier in the week indicated its coverage of the NRL’s round 3 re-start will adopt a more Olympic Games style of Player segregation, if all going well that format could be used to televise AFL matches.

This will implement a ‘clean zone’ for players, coaches, and officials on the Field of Play and a dedicated ‘dirty zone’ for other media, with strict health and safety protocols in place for any personnel and equipment entering the ‘clean zone.’

As commentators are not exempt they could potentially call the Showdown from a studio hub across a slot beginning 4pm to 4.30pm, then crossing to an evening game in Melbourne afterwards.

Earlier this week calls came from both clubs to protect the showdown, the ‘lock’ now around the Showdown and new training exemptions offered this week affords some rare certainty for both clubs, as they can now delay their respective moves to a Gold Coast hub.

Port Adelaide chief executive Keith Thomas said on Tuesday the recent exemptions for full-contact training would allow Port Adelaide players to re-start the season on an ‘equal footing’ with competitors.

While Crows coach Matthew Nicks slated that this Sunday would have been the day the Crows would re-locate to the Gold Coast. 

While the green-light looks likely, the final decision now rests with the AFL, who is set to make its announcement on the 2020 fixture on Monday.

Brendan Lines    May 15th, 2020

AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan has confirmed the 2020 AFL season will resume on June 11th at a press conference in Melbourne this afternoon, confirming both Adelaide teams will relocate to the Gold Coast.

AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan speaking at Marvel Stadium today – Image: Afl.com

McLachlan mapped out the road back to competition, announcing teams can return to training early as next Monday, with full-contact training starting May 25th for all 18 clubs.

The remaining 144 games and finals of the 2020 fixture are likely to be played in four to six week blocks, ‘roughly’ maintaining the fixtures current form, however McLachlan says ‘How we start is not how we will finish.”

The opportunity to return to play has been afforded to the AFL after consultation with Victorian, New South Wales and Queensland governments.

“Throughout this pandemic we’ve angered over every decision in line with the advice of the respective government and relevant medical authorities, our industry understands the opportunity we have been given,” he said.

The fixture of the remaining games is to be released in the coming days, matches will be scheduled at AFL venues in states allowing full-contact training and matches to take place.

Expectedly, South Australian teams the Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide will join their Western Australian counterparts the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle Dockers relocating to the Gold Coast to play in one of the designated hubs.

The Crows and Power will have to go through their relocation, quarantining and training concurrently before the May 25th date, as the South Australian government would not allow any travel concession to both teams.

“They will be based on the Gold Coast for an initial period for up to four weeks and the AFL will remain to continue to be responsive with fixturing, so it can be responsive to any changes to restriction in either state,” McLachlan says.

The AFL has committed to funding the visitation of families to players based in the Gold Coast hub, observing relevant government and ‘over and above’ AFL protocols McLachlan says.

“The AFL will implement protocols over an above the government restrictions to protect the health and safety of every member of our industry and the wider community.

“These have been developed with the advice from the federal state and territory governments, along with the relevant chief health officers as well as the AFL’s own medical team and with consultation with players coaches and clubs,” he said.

Measures under this advice McLachlan says will protect players, officials and staff across training, travel and matches, but another set of restrictions will apply when away from club bases.

This will include a risk assessment relating to players living environments and limitations of visitation to their homes from friends an family.

The long arm of restrictions has already begun and will undoubtedly reach every corner of AFL life for the duration of the pandemic, as the AFL has enshrined its COVID-19 protocols into its rules with sanctions and penalties attached.

Right now COVID-19 testing is taking place across all returning personnel to the clubs. Further daily screening of players and bi-weekly COVID-19 testing has also been mandated, which will be conducted 24-hours prior, with the results posted before ‘contact’ sessions and games.

The Grand Final is tipped to be held in late October at the MCG, but if the season does go deeper into the year the AFL is likely to arrange Marvel Stadium as an alternative.

Brendan Lines April 9, 2020

For now the spectacle of live-sport has fallen silent on the air-waves, as the bottom-line of the AFL’s gargantuan commercial interests with its broadcasters, sponsors, clubs and star-players gets decimated by the COVID-19 pandemic. There is however an obvious but less recognised spate of collateral damage affecting the TV crews who bring us the endless ‘on-tap’ AFL coverage we take for granted.

Every weekend just over 400 crew members, like Adelaide’s Laci Katsaparas, work behind the scenes of the AFL’s TV coverage across the country. It’s the ‘bread and butter’ for many of the crew members like Laci, who has worked as a Camera Control Unit-operator (CCU) for over twenty-five years broadcasting AFL.

Adelaide TV crew member Laci Katsaparas in the Adelaide Oval commentary Box – Image: In Phase Vision.

For us watching at home, we sometimes get a glimpse of the camera-operators braving the elements on the front-line, but it’s in unseen roles like Laci’s, that teams of professional technical boffins put the show to air.

“I’ve always been a behind the scenes person, I like being part of the team where you’re not at the front where people see, the public see the camera man and that’s it, they don’t realise there’s another thirty or fifty people in a truck somewhere, buried in some loading-dock at the Adelaide Oval,” Laci says.

‘Unmanned’ front-line Camera and Director’s positions at the Adelaide Oval – Image: In Phase Vision.

The TV industry is made up of a highly casualised and freelance workforce, so when the AFL was forced to suspended its 2020 season in response to the pandemic in March, Laci and all his fellow crew members’ livelihoods were hit with immediate effect.

“Yes, I can say that many people not just in my role in CCU, but of course the cameramen, you’ve got audio, you’ve got the replay guys and girls in the truck, the technicians, the whole team right through the chain has been affected exactly the same — no work basically, that’s it,” Laci says.

“Because there are no sporting events and no one can travel around from state to state, it’s actually hit us right in the head from minute number one, bang, there’s no television coverage.

“Unfortunately, I’m in the situation where I don’t work at say a television station on the news floor where they’re still going, but in our situation in the outside broadcasting sporting world, until they bring televised sport programming back, we’ve got nothing to televise, unfortunately it’s hit us very hard indeed,” Laci says.

Many of the AFL’s support services like Film, Television, Entertainment and Events workers, typically operate in a ‘gig-economy,’ where colloquially “you are only as good as you’re last gig” is a phrase to live by.

Further uncertainty surrounds the many TV workers on temporary visas, who would have worked on international sports coverage.

The fluidity of the pandemic saw TV crews released from their jobs just days following the AFL’s suspension.

At a first glance the TV industry operates like many other businesses, look deeper and you’ll find highly specialised-skilled people working with multi-million dollars worth of bespoke equipment, across a raft of live-sports all with their own tailored requirements.

Over the years Adelaide’s TV crews have bared witness and brought to our screens many memorable sporting moments such as; the Tour Down Under, Adelaide United’s 2016 A-League Grand Final win, the Adelaide 500 and Adelaide Grand Prix motorsport events.

Adelaide TV team preparing for the Tour Down Under – Image: In Phase Vision.

But despite their skills, it’s not so simple for Laci and many of his colleagues to find other work straight away.

“The actual role as a CCU operator is a hands on role, it’s a right there and then job at hand, you can’t take it away unless you’ve got the same equipment elsewhere, the job won’t go anywhere else,” Laci says.

“The skills we learn along the way, how to install cables for public venues, to make it all health and safety compliant, those are skills I could take anywhere but of course I’ve got to find the right job to apply those skills, a bit of a yes and no question, I can, but I can’t find other work for now.”

When talking to Laci, you learn very quickly that he is very passionate and feels privileged to work in a job he finds highly satisfying, having worked at every Showdown — ever, Laci’s also worked with Channel 9’s classic Cricket commentary team led by legendary broadcaster Richie Benaud, along with other revered sporting personalities.

“I worked on a Soccer O.B at West Lakes in Adelaide, Pelé came down we had to interview him, so I actually got to talk to him off-camera at the end of the interview and he gave me a hug, it was really great,” Laci says.

The highs and lows ‘behind the scenes’ play-out much like the highlight packages we all cheer and rue over. For better or worse, working at an empty Adelaide Oval for the Adelaide Crows’ round-one clash with Sydney is one of those moments.

An empty Adelaide Oval just before the Crows and Sydney round-one clash – Image: In Phase Vision.

“It was very surreal, we were walking around in the morning with no one getting allowed in,” Laci says.

“We had it in the back of our mind it could have been the last one, we prepared for it, but we also left equipment in thinking we’d be back the very next week.”

The state of flux around the unemployed casuals and freelancers from the pandemic is only exacerbated by postponements to the Olympic Games until 2021, signalling impacts to livelihoods are going to be long-term.

Broadcast companies have now gone ‘into bat’ for their crews to secure the Federal Government’s $130bn JobKeeper support package — which might be just the life-line workers like Laci need to make ends meet during the pandemic.

“We’re getting emails how to cope with the Coronavirus and how the company is dealing with the situation that is arising from the virus, including all the new government regulations and government subsidies that are rolled-out and introduced,” Laci says.

“So we are getting kept in the loop of what we can expect and what we are expected to do, they’ve been extremely supportive it has been great.”

Put simply the only time any certainty will return to the lives of Laci and broadcast crews everywhere won’t be until live-sport is back on the air.

Brendan Lines       March 23, 2020

Port Adelaide players, coaches and staff who travelled to the Gold Coast for last weekend’s opening round of the now suspended AFL season, will be required to self-isolate for the mandatory 14-day period as South Australia closes it’s borders amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Image: PAFC

Port Adelaide club spokesman Daniel Norton today gave an update on the travelling group.

“The players arrived home yesterday on a chartered flight so they are all back in Adelaide,

“All players are safe and well and self-isolating at the moment,” he said.

It comes as the 2020 AFL season was suspended yesterday by AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan in response to the federal and state government’s decisions to close borders and impose drastic travel restrictions.

Further to the AFL’s suspension, Port Adelaide also took strong recommendations from SA Health and the South Australian Government to have the travelling group go into self-isolation.

A statement from the club released today reads:

“Port Adelaide fully supports this decision and reiterates the health and safety of its players, coaches, staff and the broader community is paramount. The club acknowledges every precaution must be taken against the spread of the coronavirus,”  it read.

 The club has also encouraged its members to follow the instructions of medical authorities and continue to take precaution practicing social distancing.

Brendan Lines March 16, 2020

AFL CEO Gillion McLachlan has said ‘we will get a season away’ in an announcement tonight slating a raft of changes to the league in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gillon McLachlan Image: AFL.com

In an update from Friday’s statement after advice from government health officials, McLachlan says the AFL season will now be played over 17 rounds.

“The decision we have made gives us flexibility across the 2020 year and we will stay closely in touch with government and health authorities as we face into the next few months,” McLachlan said.

“The state league competitions across the country VFL, SANFL, WAFL, NEFL, TSL men’s and womens’ and all national and star taken programs will delay the start of their seasons until the end of May.”

“The AFL season will be reduced to 17 rounds every team will play each other once,” he said.

Despite the new plan, McLachlan still left uncertainty over the season’s opening round and next round of AFLW.

“It continues to be a fluid situation, we’ve not made a final decision on the men’s and women’s commitment to this weekend,” he said.

“We have meetings with clubs players and industry partners in the next twenty-four hours, we are in constant contact with the clubs with the AFLPA (AFL Players Association), we’re hosting a phone conference with all men’s and women’s players tonight.”

McLachlan also slated the possible inclusion of supplementary playing list to be available to the clubs through a ‘mini draft.’

“We’re working through a range of ideas, including the idea of supplementary playing lists being available to clubs, players will be able to be selected from any state league across the country, further details to be released next week and a time set for a mini draft,” he said.

The AFL will also form a cabinet of club presidents to be chaired by AFL commission chairman Richard Goyder to assist with the league’s direction through the pandemic, to protect health, safety and livelihoods of the wider football industry.

McLachlan also outlined the AFL will be working closely to keep clubs financially viable though the challenging times.

The 2020 AFL season opener Richmond v Carlton at the MCG is still planned to ahead from Thursday night closed to the public at this time.