Melbourne Rebels are the latest sports team to get caught up in border mayhem with five Super Rugby players left in training limbo.
The Rebels’ pre-season preparation has hit a hurdle with the five, including Cam Orr and Steve Cummins, trapped in NSW while the team has also had to find an alternate Melbourne training base.
Melbourne rushed the players out of Sydney to Wagga Wagga when the COVID-19 outbreak on the northern beaches flared to ensure they could avoid hotel quarantine after spending almost four months through the 2020 Super Rugby AU season on the road.
Lock Cummins had just returned from playing France and already endured two weeks hotel quarantine in December and only enjoyed a few days in Sydney with his family.
There was confusion about whether to stay in the regional city or try to beat the full border closure, with the Victorian government telling the club the players would be knocked back as they had already applied for an exemption.
“We didn’t anticipate full closure of borders and we were very mindful that guys had such a tough draining year in 2020,” club boss Baden Stephenson told AAP.
“The frustrating part was when we tried to move from Wagga to Melbourne like the 30,000 other travellers we were told to stay.”
The players are undergoing COVID-19 testing while they train but are growing frustrated with the situation.
The club has joined with other sporting organisations such as the Melbourne Storm, who have winger Josh Addo-Carr in Sydney, for an expedited exemption but have so far been told by officials employment is not justification for one.
“Our five players have had two COVID tests each in Wagga – all negative, are asymptomatic and desperate to get into pre-season training with their peers,” Stephenson said.
“Our players are doing all the required Rugby Australia return-to-play and COVID protocols but feel frustrated and stranded at the moment.”
The Rebels in Melbourne have also faced some challenges as they’ve been unable to train at their usual facility.
Based in the crowded AAMI Park precinct they share a training ground with the Storm, but due to an AFL directive no longer have access to the gym they share with Collingwood’s AFLW team.
The Melbourne Demons had to relocate to Casey because they share gym facilities with the Storm.
The Rebels have now had to move more than 20km away to Latrobe University.
“Latrobe Uni have a new world-class facility that ensured we had complete control over all elements of our program – field, gym, meeting rooms, recovery facilities, testing facilities and access to technology,” Stephenson said.
“With the Wallabies returning next week we have a short pre-season leading into Super Rugby 2021 so it was really important that we maximise every day and not have our program compromised by any lack of facilities.”
stillmissit
Roar Guru
Don't see a contradiction in your post and mine. Agree with you, we have been indecisive and basically hopeless. Thank god the Chinese are not in too aggressive mode, there are few in the western world who would stand up against them. We can't even support the soldiers we have.
The Sheriff
Guest
So I am expendable, am I? In the next six months I would hope to see a Wallabies revival, (not such a ) ClassACT
Markus
Roar Rookie
"Don’t understand it and think the western world has turned into a terrified bunch of marshmallows." On the contrary, the western world has been the most indecisive and apathetic in their response to the outbreak, and their infection and death rates reflect that. Compare that to Asian countries like Taiwan, Vietnam and even China itself as ground zero, whose responses were prompt and decisive because they took it seriously, and have fared far better in the long run as a result.
Markus
Roar Rookie
"If the choice is shortening a full life by 6-12 months or pushing kids into poverty, I know what I’d prefer" False dichotomy. Poverty is an economic decision, it is entirely possible to minimise the spread of the virus AND not let people live in poverty. Besides, even those who don't die immediately during the initial infection will have their lives shortened by a whole lot more than 6-12 months from the ongoing impacts it causes to the body.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
Yeah you are right Andy. When it was a Vic leak from quarantine you could say yeah maybe one start were just useless. But considering this has happened now multiple times in Sydney, Adelaide, Brisbane, NZ as well as people escaping WA quarantine I think the reality is that it's just very difficult to deal with in a humane manner, with temporary resources (i.e. we don't have a national quarantine centre and by the time we established a fit for purpose facility to house enough people the risk would likely have surpassed anyway). More people will surely increase the risk.
AndyS
Guest
I would have thought that, given all the recent outbreaks have been related to failures in quarantine of overseas travellers, more would be unlikely to be better. It could certainly be done, but that many more cleaners, security, etc would only increase the risk, and probably more than proportionately. It is probably why the numbers have been halved.
ScottD
Roar Guru
No, I think you are correct
ScottD
Roar Guru
There’s probably a chicken and egg here somewhere so let’s not get into that debate mate :laughing: I would note that the key component to what I was trying to say is that logic, common sense, compassion and medical science have seemed to be shelved at times when they became inconvenient against political point scoring. Personally for me this has been really disappointing. Australia currently has approximately 350 active Covid -19 cases. This is a phenomenally low number and nobody would claim that our health services are overstretched. And yet our politicians for the last 4 months have been reluctant to allow more than ~5000 (now halved) Australians per week to come home? We clearly have plenty of capacity to quarantine more people than that and still stay safe so why don’t we? My personal view is that it is more about the politics of the situation and nothing about the reality as I haven’t heard any doctors organisations clamouring to reduce the homecomings. Having said that I do think Australia has done a pretty good job on the Corona virus front. I just think some elements could be better and there’s no reason not to tweak what we are doing except for politics… Still, everyone has their own view on this so I am going to hold myself to that one example. Cheers Piru
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
I think it wasn't a change in approach but more workable with a bigger comp. I believe teams who played in WA within 14 days, only played other teams who were in isolation, and until the 14 days was up they couldn't leave their hub at all. I could be wrong on this though. With a 5 team comp this just isn't feasible though.
piru
Roar Rookie
The situation in Australia which is under question by Stillmissit is that if there are 2-3 cases in one day the borders get closed and the politics of fear seem to be over riding the science and common sense that we would hope was the driver of policy. I would have thought the border closures and lockdowns are WHY we only have 2-3 cases per day.
ScottD
Roar Guru
I agree it is their prerogative but I think their approach to negotiations with the AFL was very different to their approach to RA. Still, I am happy to be proved wrong this year and hope I am. The way the various governments are behaving right now we might need to form a rugby hub in Alice Springs or Coober Pedy for the whole competition.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
They are pretty consistent Scott. I'm pretty sure the AFL hubs are based on 14 days of isolation from anybody outside the hub also. The WA government just haven't prioritised facilitating professional sport. Which is fine. That's their prerogative.
Train Without A Station
Roar Guru
But the South America situation started with this. The NSW situation for example will probably be ok. But at the same time, venue alerts indicate that active cases have been circulating as recently as the 8th or 9th of January. This is 4 weeks after the first case. As long as these cases are circulating in the community potentially infectious (as opposed to contacts already in isolation when they test positive and thus never a threat to community transmission) NSW is always potentially one super spreader event completely outside of their control away from their system being stressed and no certainty if it will cope without locking down. And as long as they have this risk, any state who remains open to them takes on this risk also. Premiers aren't just weighing up the health risk. They are weighing up the economic risk of needing to lockdown if it gets to that position.
Paul D
Roar Rookie
And if only COVID was the only thing that occupied Intensive Care beds...
piru
Roar Rookie
If my team hadn’t won a game all season, I would have refrained from taking aim at other people’s informed opinions. Just saying. Let me know when you get an informed opinion and we'll see.
ClassAct
Guest
If my team hadn’t won a game all season, I would have refrained from taking aim at other people’s informed opinions. Just saying.
ScottD
Roar Guru
Agreed, however I am starting to think 2021 will be a repeat of 2020 in terms of playing hubs . This is probably going to work against the Force as WA government won't work to help rugby the same way they do wrt AFL hubs.
piru
Roar Rookie
If the choice is shortening a full life by 6-12 months or pushing kids into poverty, I know what I’d prefer What a very brave choice to make with other peoples' lives
Ex force fan
Guest
Let's hope there will be less disruptions this year and that the playing field will be more even. Being in a bubble on the road for months playing all your games away without seeing your family will have an impact on relationships and heath.
Ex force fan
Guest
ClassAct I agree with Carlos, I have seen what is happening in South Africa where you cannot get an ICU bed when you need it. Those that erred on the side of caution has done better so far. The balance will continue to move, as he virus mutate and better treatments are available. However, until then we should not let the cat our of the bag.