With Melbourne's coronavirus spike leaving organisers with no choice but to can the season, the Giants and their northern division compatriots still believe a season will be viable should Victorian Government regulations allow contact sport to begin in regional areas not affected by COVID-19.
Giants president David Davis said there was still plenty of work to do, but there was sufficient interest to keep pushing ahead with a season.
“The teams up here in the northern division — Bendigo, the Murray Crays, Echuca-Moama and Kerang as well as us — we're all keen to play if the government allows it,” Davis said.
“I've already had contact with all the clubs on Monday and we're all in the same boat, we plan to find an avenue to play, obviously abiding by all regulations.
“I guess you could say we're going to ‘go rogue’ a little bit, but the northern division teams just want to play each other and not worry about travelling to Melbourne or anything like that.”
The over-35 season had been scheduled to begin on the weekend of July 25 and 26, although planning for the purely northern division competition remains a work in progress.
“The next step, if Daniel Andrews shuts up shop and says `no contact sport at all’, then we're screwed,” Davis said.
“But we'll let the government determine our next step; we've got until the end of September, and council has told us if we need to push later than that they'll work with us to find a home — they've been really, really good.”
Davis said the mental health benefits of team sport were a huge consideration as the team continued to train and push toward playing matches.