Since I last wrote, Western Australia has emerged from a week-long COVID-19 lockdown period, fortunately with no community outbreaks, and Victoria has endured a third (and happily brief) lockdown stint.
The need to be 'COVID-flexible' continues, in order to best protect our communities from further outbreaks, and we have seen this with the shifting fixtures for the current AFLW season.
Despite the fixturing disruptions, we are proud of the progress that the team is making in our second year in the AFLW, and the improvements we have seen after our first season in 2020 was cut a little short due to COVID-19.
We look forward to hosting round five of the NAB AFL Women's Competition this Sunday, February 28, at Mineral Resources Park, and we'd love to see you here when the West Coast Eagles take on the Gold Coast Suns from 2:10pm. Ticketing information is here. If you can't make it, or live too far away, the match will be broadcast on television in Western Australia or streaming on womens.afl.
With the 2021 Toyota AFL Premiership Season fast approaching, the clubs and AFL are working hard to get a 'normal' fixture off the ground, and we continue to be optimistic that we'll be able to do so. As you would be aware, the first six rounds have been fixtured, with the remainder of the season tentatively scheduled; however, as we've seen with the AFLW, any fixture is subject to change depending on COVID-19 events and situations around the country.
At present, capacities for most venues across Australia remain restricted; however, we're working closely with the AFL and State Governments to fit in as many fans, safely, as we're permitted.
Given the propensity for things to change in this current environment, we don't have a final answer on your match arrangements for round one at Optus Stadium just yet, and will wait until as close to the match as possible to confirm these. Unfortunately, it's the way we need to operate at the moment, but we will communicate pertinent information to you as soon as it becomes available to us.
If access to matches continues to be limited due to Government restrictions, then we will once again work out what this means for our members and how to address any material reduction in match access benefits.
A reminder also that a fully-mobile approach to ticketing will be in place for 2021, with digital ticketing to be utilised for the majority of AFL venues in 2021. I outlined the reasons for this, and also the change to our provision of membership items, in an email in November last year – you can read that email again here.
Unfortunately, the AFL is still restricting the ability for our members and supporters to access training sessions or practice matches, despite Adam Simpson and Daniel Pratt and all of our men's and women's players missing the interaction they would normally have with our fans.
We will continue to work with the AFL to open up our training sessions once again; in the meantime, we've been able to secure a livestream opportunity for the men's practice match against Fremantle this Saturday, February 27 from 10am (AWST). You can view the livestream through the links on our website at westcoasteagles.com.au.
Thank you for your patience as we work through this new environment, and towards achieving the best possible outcomes for our club and our members.
Go Eagles!
Kind regards,
Trevor Nisbett
Chief Executive
