GWS and Sydney faced off in the "Battle of the Bridge" on Sunday night without a host of key stars.
Headlined by Toby Greene and Callum Mills, the two teams were forced to send the duo and eight other players into a hard 14-day quarantine after being upgraded to Tier 2 close contacts after they attended a rugby match in Melbourne last Tuesday night.
Five players were removed from the team sheet last night just before the game started.
Greene and teammate Matt De Boer, as well as Sydney's Mills, Harry Cunningham and Colin O’Riordan, were all forced to head into quarantine just an hour before the match.
The upgraded exposure site came after Victorian health authorities on Sunday reclassified the players and staff as Tier 2 contacts. The upgrade affected 15 players and staff across the two clubs.
The group had entered the rugby through gate 7 of the venue and sat in rows 25-42 of zone 2.
The AFL fixture looks destined for a shake-up in order to get something resembling Round 19 ticked off and there is the very real possibility that the players who missed yesterday will not be out of quarantine before their teams next game.
If in Victoria, the players and staff would only need to isolate until returning a negative test but in Queensland it is a different story. In Queensland, those quarantining must isolate until advised otherwise by the department of health.
If required to wait out the 14 days, the players from both sides would miss the next two rounds of footy no matter what reshuffling the AFL do with the fixture.
Tom Morris of Fox Footy is reporting that the quarantine may be backdated, meaning the players would only need to miss one game.
"The advice to GWS and Sydney this morning is their quarantine is backdated from Tuesday, meaning Greene, Mills etc would get out in 9 days and just miss Round 19," morris tweeted.
The AFL said in a statement that they will work with the Queensland government and follow their advice.
“The occurrences of the last few days show how volatile the pandemic continues to be in the community – it only respects discipline,” AFL EGM Football Andrew Dillon said.
“We will continue to work closely with the relevant state governments and medical professionals and be led by their advice and ask everyone in our industry to continue to be vigilant with their movements within their current communities.
“We will continue to make the necessary decisions to best protect the competition and the wider community.”
“We thank the continued support of all Governments as we navigate through these challenging circumstances.”