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State of Origin III is in serious doubt to be held in Sydney after the NSW government enacted a two-week lockdown in parts of the state on Saturday.
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The ARL Commission will hold a crisis meeting on Tuesday where it will decide whether to play NRL games in Sydney as scheduled without crowds or relocate the matches to outside of locked-down areas.
The location of Origin III, which is set to be held on July 14 at Stadium Australia, will also be discussed.
ARLC chairman Peter V’landys confirmed to AAP that the blockbuster event is in extreme doubt considering it is set to be played just five days after the lockdown is scheduled to finish on July 9.
“It’s just after the lockdown,” he said.
“Basically if you look at previous (lockdowns) they take a while to go back to normal, it takes a few weeks to reduce restrictions.
“If you look at Melbourne, their lockdown finished two weeks ago and they’ve only just allowed 50 per cent crowds.
“There’s always a time lag from the end of the lockdown to when they start reducing the restrictions.”
The NRL has acted accordingly already this year, moving the State of Origin opener from Melbourne to Townsville while Victoria was in lockdown at the start of June.
Moving the third game of the series out of Sydney would avoid playing one of the game’s showpiece events in front of a reduced crowd.
That decision would be particularly crucial if it is a decider, which could attract a sell-out crowd.
Jarome Luai and Nathan Cleary. (Photo by Ian Hitchcock/Getty Images)
V’landys refused to assure that the match would be held in NSW if relocated despite the first two games being held in Queensland, saying the commission would consider the best financial option for the game.
“We’ll look at all options and we have to look at the financial viability of it too,” he said.
“The Townsville one was very financially beneficial for us, so we have to look at that.
“Naturally we want to minimise the losses we will incur.
“Having no crowds will be a big hit on us.
“We need to do everything in our power to minimise the losses, wherever there’s an opportunity to take it.”
On Saturday afternoon the NRL was holding high-level meetings to determine the impact of stay at home orders for residents in Greater Sydney, Central Coast, Blue Mountains and Wollongong until July 9.
Currently, 10 of the NRL’s 16 teams reside in those areas.
Decisions on relocating games and bubble restrictions hinge on negotiations with Queensland and Victorian state governments.
The regular NRL competition is set to resume on Thursday when the Sydney Roosters host Melbourne in Newcastle, which has already been shifted from the Sydney Cricket Ground.
There are three more games scheduled for Sydney next weekend as well as the first two games of round 17, which also fall into the lockdown period.
“The lockdown helps us, because with less people moving around, there’s less risk for the players to catch the virus,” V’landys said.
“Even though we’ve got our protocols, people aren’t moving around which helps our cause.
“This is a greater challenge than last year because it’s so much more contagious.”
The latest concerns for the competition come as NSW and Queensland prepare to play Origin II in Brisbane on Sunday night.
© AAP
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