Hannah Wilkinson on the attack for the Football Ferns against Australia during the Tokyo Olympics.
Photo / Getty Images
Hannah Wilkinson on the attack for the Football Ferns against Australia during the Tokyo Olympics.
Photo / Getty Images
Hannah Wilkinson would rather train at home in Whangārei than spend time in quarantine in Melbourne ahead of the Women's League competition scheduled to start in a few weeks.
A day after coming out of quarantine in Christchurch following the Tokyo Olympics, New Zealand went into Covid lockdown which forcedthe Football Fern to do her own training at home.
Running up and down Mount Parihaka was the most she could do outdoors until Northland went down to alert level 2 last week and she hit the gym for some well-needed training.
The 29-year-old signed with Melbourne in the Women's League and is hopeful the competition can start around November.
"Waiting on Victoria to re-open its borders to let kiwi players in and hopefully that happens in October but I'd prefer to stay here and train more than fly over and go into quarantine for two weeks," Wilkinson said.
She said hopefully Victoria reached between 80 per cent and 90 per cent vaccination in time for the start of the women's competition.
"If the Women's League season is prolonged, I'll look to train with the boys up here."
Hannah Wilkinson training at Mount Parihaka ahead of the strat to the Women's League in Australia.
Photo / Michael Cunningham
Northland Region Football is making plans to play the juniors and youths on September 18 and a week later, subject to the Whangārei District Council opening the grounds.
The senior men's will play on September 25 and October 2 and the senior women on September 26 and October 3.
Their semifinals is scheduled at Semenoff Stadium on October 9 and 10.
Northland football development officer Dave Alabaster said clubs would know by Friday
17 the readiness of the grounds and which games would go ahead.
Weather this week, he said, has hampered plans to get the grounds ready on time for the weekend's fixtures.
Alabaster said due to Covid protocols, all games would be played without spectators. "We're reasonably confident at this stage that we can play all the games," he said.
