SPORT in South Australia was thrown a lifeline yesterday afternoon with the announcement by the Premier Mr Steven Marshall full contact would soon be allowed.
The Premier said sport would be “significantly enhanced” with the further easing of COVID-19 restrictions.
“So we will be allowing contact training as of next Monday and competition for outdoor contact sports to resume from June 25,” he said.
“Competition for non-contact outdoor sport can resume as of next Monday.”
Mr Marshall said the easing of restrictions would provide “major changes for sport”.
“We are a sporting nation and we love our sport in South Australia,” he said.
“It is going to be absolutely fantastic that we can be back to full contact training of footy, of soccer, outdoors as of Monday next week and back to full competition from the 25th of June.”
Commissioner Grant Stevens gave an update regarding border restrictions, but there was no good news relating to that or crowds in place at games at this stage.
He said interstate jurisdictions were monitored regarding how they deal with positive cases in their community, so South Australia could be comfortable any relaxation of activities in South Australia would not be adversely affected as a result of people travelling into the state.
“Whilst we have border restrictions in place, we do not have closed borders,” the commissioner said.
“We have significant numbers of people who are deemed to be essential travellers coming into the state from NSW, Queensland and Victoria where we have seen concerning numbers of positive cases over the recent weeks.
“The decisions about when we relax activities in South Australia are based on the current circumstances in South Australia and the performance of the health sector and the community and we have seen nothing but positive results from both sectors.”
As for crowds in general, Mr Marshall said he would like to get South Australia back to normal as soon as possible, but it would be dependant on the number of new cases and high-level testing.
