North Wagga speedster Corey Watt is one of the few footballers for whom the season shutdown could be a blessing in disguise.
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The Saints midfielder injured himself two weeks ago at training and says the unscheduled break between the home-and-away season and a (possible) finals series is the only thing giving him a shot at playing again.
"It's not good (the statewide lockdown) but it's probably come at the right time for me," Watt said.
"I tore my quad at training so I was going to have a few weeks off, if not the rest of the season. I just went to take off and it felt like someone shot me in the leg."
The grade two tear is a 4-6 week injury. He thinks he'd be three weeks away from playing yet.
The Farrer League finals are on hold pending a lifting of restrictions. They're every chance of being shortened too as AFL Riverina explores options for the best chance of wrapping up a season complete with premierships.
North Wagga were due to play the Northern Jets in an elimination final on Sunday just gone.
If the format is reduced to a three-week top-four series, they'd play The Rock-Yerong Creek (third). If it's cut to two sudden-death semi-finals and a grand final, they'd be in line to meet minor premiers Marrar first.
Watt, who is North Wagga's longest serving current player, said his teammates are putting in the work training in pairs and they'll be happy to play anyone.
"Not really, (it won't worry us) At the end of the day, if you go the whole way you've got to play them all," Watt said. "At the moment you just concentrate on staying fit. I'll just concentrate on trying to get back on the footy field. But it's all just a waiting game at the moment."
Cayden Winter has coached Saints for nearly two years and is still waiting to take his team into final.
"We've done the hard work and for me as a coach, I'd love nothing more than to run out with the boys on a day like today, the sun's shining, and play a final," Winter said on Saturday.
The 2019 flag isn't a focus for the current group, he said, but hopes if they're reigning premiers next year, it's a 2021 premiership they're defending, not a three-year-old one.
"Between 2019 and now there's been a big turnover of players so we haven't spoken too much about that much but it is a strange situation that we've been defending premiers for two years," Winter said.
"Obviously the boys would love to get out there and defend it. We've done the work since November - you could nearly say the pre-season before that - to get to this point of being about to play finals and I really think our group deserves the chance to play finals."
Winter agreed with East Wagga-Kooringal coach Matt Hard that a week's preparation would be necessary before a re-start.
North Wagga had already lost Canberra-based forward Daniel Jordan to an ankle injury. In theory, the delay could give him some chance but his recovery has been slow, the ACT has its own lockdown complications, and Winter said they won't count on him.
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