Families have been split up for the sake of sport this week and it’s not just the football codes who are feeling the Covid pinch.
Anger is growing within Super Netball ranks about the inequality of the Melbourne hub, with three clubs forced to isolate in hotel quarantine while others are relatively free of restrictions.
The NSW Swifts, Giants Netball and West Coast Fever have been forced into 14-day quarantine after arriving from “red zones”, with isolation taking a toll, particularly on those travelling with children.
Despite already completing almost a week of quarantine in Queensland – where they initially fled to escape Sydney‘s Covid outbreak – time has been reset for the Swifts and Giants, with Victorian health officials insisting the clubs complete 14 days in isolation, only leaving their hotels to travel to and from training and games.
The Sydney clubs travelled to Melbourne on the same flight as the Queensland Firebirds and Sunshine Coast Lightning, who were bundled out of the Sunshine State late on Tuesday to beat that state‘s impending lockdown.
The Firebirds and Lightning were in hotel quarantine from their arrival on Tuesday night until they returned negative Covid tests late on Wednesday but have been free to move since then, although league-enforced protocols around player-movement and training are in place.
It’s understood the teams involved are privately seething about the situation.
Swifts coach Briony Akle, who travelled to Queensland with her four sons when the NSW teams were forced to move to Queensland after Sydney‘s Covid outbreak, has been forced to break her family up, taking just two of her children to Melbourne with her.
A moving picture of Akle embracing her youngest son Xavier emerged on Thursday, showing the emotional toll the league‘s upheaval is having on players and team staff, while former Diamonds captain Liz Ellis put out a call for anyone in Melbourne able to deliver toys or colouring books for the children of players and staff stuck in lockdown.
The call was answered by the Melbourne Vixens, with Jo Weston and Kate Maloney playing Santa for “one big netball family”.
Akle‘s colleague, Fever coach Stacey Marinkovich has travelled east without son Matthew, 17 months, with the uncertainty surrounding the time to be spent in the hub preventing him from travelling.
“I had to leave him behind. Just with the nature in which we had to get out and go, the reality is with so many other border restrictions around, I just don’t have the family in Perth to be able to relocate to Melbourne and I don’t have that support here,” Marinkovich said.
“My husband and I pretty much decided that it was best for Matthew in terms of his routine and keeping things a bit settled.
“We just don’t know how long we’re here for. If it started to stretch out, then certainly we’d look at what that looks like in terms of whether he came over.”
But in a show of how determined all teams are to complete the season, Marinkovich said all in the league were aware of how privileged they were to be playing at all.
“(Sacrifices) are all over the league, all over sport,” she said.
“But it’s a privilege to play, it’s a privilege to be involved in the sport and in when you’ve got millions of people locked up at home, we’re still able to work and do our jobs.
“I don’t think we’re really able to be in a place where we can be too down in the dumps because we actually get to do what we love and we all get connected back to our families and get to maximise our time when that time comes.”