AFL Northern Territory (AFLNT) wishes to advise it is looking at a contingency to re-fixture the TIO NTFL Finals for week one or week two away from TIO Stadium.
The topic will be discussed this evening when the NTFL Presidents convene with AFLNT officials for their scheduled in-season meeting.
The plan to potentially move games over the next two weekends is being made in an effort to preserve the ground for the NTFL grand finals on Saturday 10 and 17 March.
With more than 840 millimetres of rainfall being recorded by the Bureau of Meteorology’s Marrara rainfall station for 2018 so far, the playing surface of TIO Stadium and TIO Oval 2 have taken a battering.
The rainfall data also shows that since January 4th there has not been a period of more than two consecutive days where no rain has been recorded, as opposed to 2017 which had five ‘zero’ rainfall days between February 15 – 19 and again from February 21 – 25.
AFLNT Manager of Community Football and Facilities Russell Jeffrey said the ideal scenario was that all finals at TIO Stadium would go ahead as planned and without incident but the weather and related conditions were uncontrollable.
“This morning I walked both TIO Stadium and TIO Oval 2 surface, in my opinion, at this stage they’re not suitable to play an NTFL final on. At the moment neither ground is dry enough to be mowed and though the sun is out today, the forecast for the next few days could set us right back.
“The responsible thing for us to do is to plan for a backup, and by tomorrow lunchtime we will look to make the right call for this weekend. We will bear in mind what will work for a few weeks’ time when we want the best of the best battling it out against each other on a solid surface,” Jeffrey said.
AFLNT will issue a further update tomorrow afternoon for the finals week one fixture. While a decision for finals week two games will not be made until next week.
