- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
West Coast are struggling to field a complete team for their Round 2 clash with North Melbourne, with coach Adam Simpson revealing on Friday the club could have as few as 16 senior players available.
The spread of COVID-19 in Western Australia has forced 12 players out of the match, with the already named Isaiah Winder, Josh Kennedy, Jack Redden, Tom Barrass and Zac Langdon to be joined by more than a dozen others when official teams drop on Friday afternoon.
“I think we’ve got 12 from last week’s game that will be unavailable this week, so there’s a little bit of work to do with our side,” Simpson said.
“We’ll have to confirm all that this afternoon, but we’ll be leaning on the top-up players who have become available to us in the last few weeks.”
The Eagles will be forced to turn to top-up players to field a full side at Marvel Stadium on Sunday, having already named former Roo Declan Mountford as an emergency for their clash with Gold Coast in Round 1.
However, only three top-ups have trained with the club to date, meaning many players who will pull on the blue and gold on Sunday will have never met other members of the team.
“Yesterday it became a cluster and we started to realise that there wasn’t much we could do. When does it stop is the next question,” Simpson said of the escalating crisis.
“We will fly on a charter, we will have a captain’s run tomorrow afternoon, have a meeting and get to know each other.”
The AFL has been firm through the AFLW competition in its desire to have games go forward without being postponed, even if COVID strikes.
Collingwood’s qualifying final clash with Brisbane was the first match to be delayed for the season, with many clubs forced to keep playing despite hefty lists of outs due to the league’s health and safety protocols.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.