I had waited until the last minute to cobble together this week's draft, hoping against hope that my application for medical exemption would be approved.
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Unfortunately for you and me both, the editor shook his head firmly, and my referral to the third umpire Mr Morrison was met with the standard "rules are rules" answer that can so irritate.
Initially, the delay may have averted the slim possibility of me sending you to Wollongong this afternoon, to watch the waves crashing onto the shore, rather than the Jets playing Wellington.
At least the game was still on, just at an alternative venue. WRONG!
Go to Kogarah Jubilee people, and save yourself 45 minutes, and the toll on the Wollongong freeway, if you fancy some live sport, or even a drive to get you out of the home, I suggested helpfully.
DON'T! The game is off! The temptation to do a juvenile gag about the Bulli Pass, and an alternative route, has thus thankfully been rendered irrelevant.
I don't know about you, but it's hard to keep up with what day it is at this time of the year, especially with Test matches beginning on a Wednesday. Not as difficult perhaps as working out who is playing in the A-League on a week-to-week basis.
On that score you can trot out the old "one game at a time" chestnut, and take it as solid-gold gospel. The Jets, who haven't played for almost three weeks, suddenly face another blank weekend. I'm going to assume that house parties, raves, and Argyle House are not suggested avenues of release.
The Jets now face a minimum four-week gap between games.
Now that might be OK if all teams were affected in the same way, and in a similar time frame, but that is going to vary, and some teams will be disadvantaged. More pertinently, the issue of player welfare certainly carries more weight in the modern era.
The league may need to consider an across-the-board hiatus very shortly, if it wants to maintain an even playing field, and indeed the integrity of the draw.
It's hard to be confident in the prospective form of any team at the moment, more so those who have been heavily affected by COVID cases, isolations and so on. The strength-and-conditioning teams, and the performance-data analysts, must be having kittens, worrying about loads, and what the numbers are saying.
If a hamstring injury takes four-to-six weeks, what does an asymptomatic COVID-19 carrier facing 14 days isolation have to do before being considered for selection? How much quicker will the new seven-day iso period make the return to first-team action?
Will a continuing spike in COVID numbers lead to squad sizes being increased as Jets coach Arthur Papas suggested? Those who watch the Big Bash cricket will have watched a number of hitherto almost-anonymous, new faces step up to the plate when given an opportunity. Will the A-League unearth something similar?
Is it feasible that a title can be won or lost due to COVID management? Will the depth of the bigger clubs prevail if we get a glut of midweek catch-up fixtures? All of which makes picking up maximum points when you can, and when you should, absolutely imperative.
The only positive thing about missing three games in a row for the Jets is that they should have everyone available for selection, and it will be interesting to see which 11 Papas selects when the Jets play again. It may also give me an answer to my musings about a timeline for those returning from a COVID-induced absence.
In my mind, Angus Thurgate is definitely in the best 11. He is also an elite "European figures" athlete. He can't have lost all that in a fortnight, given his reportedly minor symptoms, can he? Would he have been in the starting 11 today had the game gone ahead?
We shall now not find the answer to that question, and a number of others, until further down the track.
