It’s a situation the AFL has never been in before; the season postponed until June, and players sent home from their clubs.
North Melbourne’s list will be away from Arden Street for at least a month, but even beyond then, the situation is very much be up in the air.
“Basically as of yesterday we’re not allowed into the football club,” Shaun Higgins explained to SEN.
“We’ve got staff at the club, although skeleton, trying to work out what the next weeks and months look like, but that’s going to be fluid and forever moving, because really knows what the lay of the land is going to be tomorrow, let alone in eight or 12 weeks’ time.”
Higgins said now more than ever, it was time for perspective.
“To be honest this week’s just a little bit of downtime, enjoy some family time and spend time at home,” he said.
“… appreciate that little bit of balance and what we have and be grateful for that while we can.
“We’ll all got family, we’ve all got friends who are going through difficult times, who are going through difficult circumstances and times as we all are at the moment.
“It’s an important time that we look out for one another and give support where necessary, because this affects people in so many different ways, and some more so than others.”
While the current plan is for the AFL to return in two months, the situation is ever-changing.
So how do the players stay fit and prepared, without any real certainty when they’ll next take the field?
“We’ll bunker down for the next four to eight weeks, while still trying to maintain some sort of fitness,” Higgins said
“(Then) we are in a position that if it’s game on at some stage this year, we can jump straight back into it. We don’t want to waste those weeks in the lead-up to that first game as well.
“I would continue to put work in over the next four weeks, to make sure if it looked likely we were going to return in the next two, three, four months, then I could ramp that up and still be in a really good state of conditioning, that I could step straight into that.
“But then also be in a position that if it was extended out, I hadn’t gone too early.
“But I’m sure over the coming weeks and months we’ll know about that.”
