Sport
17 October, 2022
Rain causing chaos for sporting leagues, with organisations working towards next steps
Victoria’s big wet has played havoc with sporting fixtures over the last two weeks, with a bevy of cancellations leaving sporting committees scrambling for potential solutions — and with more rain forecast from Thursday through to Sunday, the...
Victoria’s big wet has played havoc with sporting fixtures over the last two weeks, with a bevy of cancellations leaving sporting committees scrambling for potential solutions — and with more rain forecast from Thursday through to Sunday, the prospect of a heavily compromised summer season could still loom.
While community sport is understandably the last thing on many people’s minds with the devastating floods inundating towns throughout country and metropolitan Victoria, organisations are continuing to press on as best as they can to ensure that competitions can be run in the short term.
Every sport throughout the Maryborough district was affected over the weekend, with community events such as the Avoca Cup and Mt Tarrengower Hill Climb in Maldon cancelled due to safety reasons, while sporting leagues around the goldfields have also been affected, with the Maryborough Cricket District Association (MDCA) washed out for the second week in succession, while there were similar cancellations for the Goldfields Saturday pennant in lawn bowls. The Maryborough Blazers will also be awaiting word on whether they’ll be taking to the court this week, with round three of the Country Basketball League — a bye round for the club — postponed, with leisure centres turning into makeshift evacuation centres last week.
For MDCA president Mark Allen, it’s not a case of panic stations just yet, despite the possibility of a third consecutive game being washed out due to inclement weather this weekend.
With five rounds scheduled for the Twenty20 competition, another washout could see two of the five teams participate in just one T20 match before the scheduled final.
“There’s no planned changes at the moment. We’re still planning to go into the competition the way things are, and see if we get some luck with the weather, even if the wickets are hard — it’s better than nothing. We’ll make a decision regarding the T20 final if we lose another couple of games, but at this stage, it’s still as normal,” Allensaid.
“We can’t control the weather, it’s a delayed start of course, the fixture is out there. We’ll just wait to see how grounds have pulled up. Avoca and Clunes’ ground copped it, and we’re not too sure how other grounds are.”
Allen said with weather being such a tricky factor to predict, a final decision on any restructuring of the cricket season would be left to the executive should any further games be washed out.
“It would have to come down to the executive to decide. The question would be, what is the fairest and best way to restructure the season? Unfortunately, there’s no way to control these unusual weather patterns we are having. If the first five games are washed out, there’s just going to have to be no final for the T20 competition, but there’s still five games of one-day and two-day each. You can have contingency plans, but you can’t guess either — you have to see how it plays out for the next couple of weeks,” he said.
“They’re all options, but we haven’t met as an executive yet. We will have to wait and see for the short term. When you have vast distances from Beaufort all the way up to Dunolly, there can be completely different weather patterns. It’s hard to have a blanket rule when it comes to inclement weather. It’s been unusually wet, however.”
Avoca Public Park, which is due to host Avoca’s A reserve season opener against MKM on October 29, was one of the grounds that was hardest hit by the catastrophic floods, with water levels falling just slightly below 2011 flood levels.
However, being mindful of the scenario at hand with homes and businesses affected heavily by flooding, Allen would like to see the township recover first and foremost before making any decision on Avoca’s home games in the short term.
“There’s every likelihood that games will get moved. I had a chat to Avoca on Friday. They say the ground itself is good, it’s the surrounds that took a battering. I’m not going to jump on them straight away, as they have to sort it out and see what happens — it’s bigger than sport at the moment. With the towns affected, we’ll give it a week’s grace and hopefully all their personal stuff is okay, then we’ll find out what’s going on with their cricket grounds and surrounds. A reserve still doesn’t start until October 29, so we do have a little bit of time up our sleeve, but we haven’t had a ball bowled in anger yet, which is frustrating,” he said.
With the last two seasons compromised to an extent by COVID, Allen can understand the frustrations of cricketers who just want to get back on to the ground and enjoy a normal season for the first time since 2019.
“There’s been plenty of pre-season training, but I’d just like to get the season started, especially since the last two or three years have been affected by COVID and other factors. It’s frustrating that there was meant to be some normality, and we get hit with so much rain in such a short amount of time,” he said.
Should the rain hold off this week, A grade games would see Clunes take on Colts Phelans at Bull Millgate Oval, while Maryborough would make their return against Beaufort at Jubilee Oval.
Meantime, other fixtures in the goldfields, should play go ahead, would see the Saturday pennant start their seasons in lawn bowls, with division one set to see Maryborough Golf Blue and Newstead Blue clash, with Highland Red taking on Dunolly Blue, Dunolly Gold playing Talbot Gold and Highland Tartan hosting Avoca Red, while the Maryborough Blazers would return after two weeks off, hosting the Mildura Heat and Echuca Pirates on Saturday and Sunday respectively.
