FOOTBALL and netball clubs were weeks away from starting their seasons when sport was put on hold.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
Across the region, months of training was somewhat wasted, with clubs’ players banned from training together.
While players were able to continue individual training, with physical fitness able to be maintained, match preparation has been heavily damaged.
It has been suggested the AFL will have a 31-day pre-season, potentially beginning as soon as May 12, in order to get players back into condition.
But while the AFL works full time to prepare, other top-flight sports — and all country sports — do not have that luxury.
The Riverine Herald spoke to senior football and netball coaches from across the region about what time frame they thought local clubs would need in order to be ready to go, with the overwhelming opinion that a month would be the sweet spot, but that players would be ready with whatever conditions they were given.
Steph Vick, Echuca Netball Club: It's something we'd need to have a proper discussion about.
While we've been in isolation, we have been doing our own work, but the issue would be our conditioning. Nothing prepares you for a game quite like being on a court and practising as a team.
Your body must be conditioned back to being on the court, the sideways movement, the jumping, all the elements of the sport.
I could comfortably say we are in as good of a position as we can be now, but it would still take a bit of time on the court to be prepared.
Guy Campbell, Echuca United Football Club: To pluck a figure out I would say a few weeks and we would be good to go.
That gives you time to get back a bit of group touch. The boys have been away doing their work and staying fit.
So, it would be a case of using the time before the season to get prepared, and then not just us but all teams would take the first couple of games to get match fitness right so we would be at our best later in the season.
Luke Eldridge, Moama FC: I think in an ideal situation we would go four weeks.
That gives you enough time to get used to the game plan and adjust to how you do things. You would notice the difference, structures would develop as the season went on, as would ability to run out games.
But I think if you give us four weeks, we would be ready. At the same time, if we get told we can play sooner than that, we would make it work because we just want to play.
Paige Wade, Tongala NC: I think they key factor is we all get the same time to prepare, then I am on board with whatever time we get.
Ideally, we would like two to three weeks, enough time to get a practice match in, but for the most part it wouldn't be too much of a difference.
We haven't played a lot of netball together in the pre-season, but no-one has. it's not something that is going to give a distinct advantage to anyone. And if that playing field stays level, then I am on board with getting back as soon as we can.
Cam van Florestein, Leitchville Gunbower FC: At least a month.
I think the sooner the better in terms of getting started for training for the season, but once we do at least a month of training would give us enough time to be ready to get the season to start again.
Brodie Collins, LBU FC: It's a bit of an unknown, but the reality is no-one is going to be truly ready to go.
Typically, when the season starts up, we have three months of preparation under our belts, so everyone is in a really good position.
But that won't be the case if we resume, even guys who are away doing their bit will have fallen behind just through not being around the club.
If we do get going, that's great and players will get themselves as ready as they can quickly, but every club in the league is going to be behind if we do resume.
Rita Howard, Mathoura NC: In an ideal world we would like four weeks to be ready, but at the same time if we got the call that we were starting on Saturday, then we would find a way to make it work.
We've been doing some work away from the club, everyone has been set their programs, so I believe we would be in a good position when we came back, but I think four weeks would be ideal for all of us.
Damien Dalziel, Echuca women's FC: Personally, I think if we had three weeks of training three nights, we could be caught up quickly, though in an ideal world you would like to have about four weeks of training.
I did the maths and if we start in mid-June, play a seven-game season where we all play each other once, we can still play finals to the original schedule. If we found out in the next week that was our time frame, I think that would work well.
Sports journalist