“IT’S A BIT OF A NIGHTMARE": BALME FRUSTRATED BY NEW-LOOK VFLBy Nic Negrepontis
SEN
27 May 2021Richmond senior advisor Neil Balme is frustrated with the revamped VFL and the fixturing of Thursday night games.
The Tigers have been scheduled to face Frankston on Thursday night in the ‘prime-time’ game that will be shown on Fox Footy.
Richmond’s AFL team doesn’t play until Sunday however and Balme said the gap made it almost impossible to manage.
“Tomorrow we go to Frankston to play them and the rest of our team doesn’t play until Sunday,” he told SEN SA on Wednesday.
“How the hell do you think we’re imagining that? Not too well. I think they’ve gone mad, personally.
“To me we should have just played Victorian VFL teams against each other and let Sydney and Brisbane look after themselves in a way. I think they were worried about the level of competition so we’re all in this East Coast thing or whatever the hell it’s called.
“It’s a bit of a nightmare and it’s quite difficult to manage, I must say.
“I get it, but it’s really difficult to manage. We’re probably only going to play eight of our kids in it because we don’t know who is going to be needed for Sunday yet. You can’t play them on Thursday and then on Sunday. It’s quite a challenge.
“We did talk to the AFL about it several times, but they said, ‘too bad, so sad, we’ve got the TV game and you’re playing’. Ah well.
“We’re not that happy with it, but it’s probably better than what we’ve had with the COVID stuff in the last year, but it is a challenge.”
Richmond sits 8th on the VFL ladder, with three wins from five games.
https://www.sen.com.au/news/2021/05/26/its-a-bit-of-a-nightmare-balme-frustrated-by-new-look-vfl/
