The Albury-Wodonga Football Association is determined to play a full season now that restrictions have been lifted for regional Victoria.
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Round 20 is due to go ahead on Sunday, albeit without spectators at the two games south of the border.
League bosses have taken a week-by-week approach throughout 2021 and will stick by that mantra rather than making any fundamental changes.
"It's absolutely massive," AWFA president Mark Leman said when the news broke yesterday.
"This allows the kids and our adult players to keep playing and it means our competitions can get 20-odd rounds in prior to the finals.
"There was talk about going to finals straight away but if you do that, you lose 50 percent of your competition each week.
"You're caught between a rock and a hard place.
"If you call finals and we could have played three or four more weeks, if there's no more lockdowns, potentially some kids will miss out on extra games of football.
"So from my point of view, let's keep playing as many rounds as possible until it becomes untenable to play any more rounds.
"At this stage, we want to keep playing so all of our members get as much game time as possible."
Moving straight to finals would be problematic all the time Wangaratta's game in hand at home to Twin City remains unplayed.
Daniel Vasilevski's side are second, three points behind Albury United, with a goal-difference inferior by eight.
"Hopefully that game will get played this week or next week," Leman said.
"We've left it up to the clubs to decide what they want to do and they'll let us know, now things have changed."
Sunday's schedule sees Boomers host St Pats, Albury City face Wodonga Diamonds and Melrose take on Wangaratta in NSW, while the two games in Victoria are Albury United's trip to Cobram and the visit of Albury Hotspurs to Myrtleford.
"We're doing our due diligence at the moment, making sure everything's right to go," Leman said.
"But at the moment, it looks like we can go back to the previous conditions, which allow us to play but with no spectators at senior level (in Victoria).
"The best thing is that kids and players can get back to training this week.
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"Our club presidents are all trying to do the right thing. The objective's always been to get as many games of football played as possible.
"We move on to round 20 and hopefully there are no more lockdowns.
"We're keeping our fingers crossed."
United, Wangaratta, Myrtleford, Boomers, Albury City and Hotspurs are all guaranteed to finish in the top-eight, with Twin City also likely to make the cut.
But it's going to go down to the wire as Diamonds, St Pats and Cobram, separated by just a single point, battle it out for the last spot.
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