NRL restart

Beautiful dawn for the ocean swimmers this morning

The National Rugby League (NRL), one of Australia's football codes, resumes competition tonight to complete a shortened season, the first professional winter sport in Australia to do so.  The regular season was suspended back in March after just two games.  The 28 May restart date seemed an ambitious goal when announced 6 weeks ago, but to their credit it will happen.  It remains to be seen what transpires if any of the players or support staff are diagnosed with COVID-19 during the season.

The Skillion this morning

The NRL took a gamble going for the 28 May restart date.  They now look smart and competent, but I would argue that they are really the lucky beneficiaries of the successful containment of the COVID-19 pandemic by the Australian authorities.  On 9 April, when the NRL announced their planned restart date, the projections we were all relying on suggested a 6-month shut-down in Australia, and it was just two weeks past the daily peak of new cases.

Star of the Sea apartment complex, the season home of the
NZ Warriors NRL team on the hill overlooking Terrigal

Australia "over-achieved" in its response to the coronavirus pandemic, exceeding the expectations of the epidemiologists, largely through prompt government action and good popular compliance.  Of course, there was a scarcity of data about the COVID-19 virus, particularly in Australia, which made forecasting difficult, and it was incumbent on the authorities to plan for the worst.  As the end of May approaches, we are in a much better place than anybody expected two months ago, which is excellent.

Swimmers and paddle-boarders on the water on a much calmer ocean

Although I'm not a big NRL fan, there will be some added interest for me this season since the New Zealand Warriors NRL team will be based in a nearby gated apartment complex, the Star of the Sea,  and will play its home games, without crowds, at the Central Coast Stadium.  They are under strict quarantine conditions and have not been allowed to mingle with the locals in Terrigal.  I guess this may change, depending on how the pandemic numbers go over the next few months.  I doubt that I will watch too many games, despite the absence of sports viewing competition, but I will watch when convenient, and will be supporting the Warriors, now my home team.

I walked and jogged 6km this morning.  It's still too early to tell how the troublesome hip is going, but no obvious problem so far, which is encouraging.  I feel very unfit and overweight, but it's good to be exercising again.