Game three in limbo due to lockdown

SYDNEY: State of Origin three is unlikely to be held in Sydney after the New South Wales government enacted a two-week lockdown in parts of the state on Saturday.
The Australian Rugby League Commission (ARLC) will hold a crisis meeting tomorrow where it will decide whether to play NRL games in Sydney as scheduled without crowds or relocate the matches to outside of locked-down areas.
The location of Origin three, which is set to be held on July 14 at Stadium Australia, will also be discussed.
ARLC chairman Peter V’landys confirmed to AAP that the blockbuster event is in extreme doubt considering it is set to be played just five days after the lockdown is scheduled to finish on July 9.
“Basically, if you look at previous (lockdowns) they take a while to go back to normal, it takes a few weeks to reduce restrictions,” he said.
“If you look at Melbourne, their lockdown finished two weeks ago and they’ve only just allowed 50 per cent crowds.”
The NRL has acted accordingly already this year, moving the State of Origin opener from Melbourne to Townsville while Victoria was in lockdown at the start of June.
Moving the third game of the series out of Sydney would avoid playing one of the game’s showpiece events in front of a reduced crowd.
That decision would be particularly crucial if it is a decider, which could attract a sell-out crowd.
Newcastle’s McDonald Jones Stadium has already been raised as an option.
However, V’landys refused to assure that the match would be held in NSW despite the first two games being in Queensland.
“We’ll look at all options and we have to look at the financial viability of it too,” he said. “The Townsville one was very financially beneficial for us, so we have to look at that.
“Naturally we want to minimise the losses we will incur.”
Should the game be moved out of the state altogether, it would be the first time in history all three games of a series have been played outside of an Origin state.
Blues coach Brad Fittler was diplomatic when asked whether that was fair.
“We’ll do whatever we’ve got to do,” he said ahead of last night’s game two at Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane. – Yahoo Sports Australia