North Coast AFL to begin return to play planning

Players will resume modified training from Monday in groups of up to eight, with full contact training from May 25, McLachlan says.

An initial four-week block of fixtures will be released within 10 days.

Four clubs - West Coast, Fremantle, Adelaide and Port Adelaide - will be based in hubs on Queensland's Gold Coast for the early part of the season resumption.

"Our 2020 AFL premiership season will resume on Thursday June 11," McLachlan told reporters in Mebourne on Friday.

With the national competition finalised, the discussion behind Aussie Rules at a community level begins as North Coast clubs begin to plan the season for their senior, junior and women's teams.

The Macleay Valley Eagles will be looking to field teams in Under 11's and 13's along with conducting their Auskick program.

"This year due to AFL requirements and a lack of volunteers/players we can only run Auskick, Under 11 and an Under 13 side," Eagles president Evan Aspiotis told the Argus.

Aspiotis said the club have been attempting to keep their players occupied by maintaining constant communication online.

"To keep players going during these tough times we have been posting training tips and how to videos online," he said.

Currently, due to coronavirus restrictions the AFL has cut costs dramatically with staff and this announcement will go a long way towards employees returning to their jobs.

"Gil's announcement will also coincide with our workforce schedule because at the moment 85% of our staff, nationally, have been stood down because we have no elite and community football for staff to work in," Northern NSW AFL regional manager Simon Smyth said.

"So Gil will soon outline how many of our staff will return."

In line with statements from other codes the AFL is hoping that state authorities approve their request for clubs to go back and train in groups of 10 with certain hygiene protocols attached.

This will then allow regional managers to inform clubs when they can return to training and how they can with a return date to follow on from that.

"I haven't spoken to all our clubs yet but hopefully it'll be sometime between June or July we'll get back to playing local football, it just depends on how quickly the state government will allow us to move from no training, to training in small groups, to training with a full team and sharing of equipment and then playing competition matches," Smyth said.

"At the moment there's a lot of things happening in the background and as soon as we can make an announcement around when footy is starting we'll have plenty of information to divulge - we're just waiting for the first domino to fall and the rest will go pretty quickly."

A decision regarding a North Coast AFL return to play date will be discussed next Thursday night with all clubs meeting Smyth via video to propose season dates and discuss the pros and cons around those dates.