A deluge in Townsville won't stop this weekend's Gold Coast-Geelong match
AFL Townsville is certain Sunday's JLT Community Series game between Gold Coast and Geelong at Riverway Stadium will go ahead despite torrential rain causing flooding in the region this week.
Townsville recorded 150 millimetres of rain between 9am Wednesday and 5am Thursday but AFL Queensland's Townsville Regional Manager Kath Newman said that with the weather forecast to improve, the ground would be fine.
"It's still raining at the moment but this ground is really, really well drained so even if we get a bucketload of rain it still will drain," Newman said.
"At this stage it looks like the weather is supposed to clear over the next couple of days so I would imagine Sunday we'll be all ready to go."
Geelong, which flies out on Saturday, is expected to select several young players for the match against the Gold Coast, with superstar recruit Gary Ablett certain to miss with a minor hamstring strain.
It will be Gold Coast's first proper hit-out under new coach Stuart Dew.
Newman said despite the conditions not being ideal for football, the locals were quite happy to get some rain after being affected by drought.
The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast up to two millimetres of rain for Sunday and Newman is still hopeful the game will attract a good crowd.
"We were hoping for 5-6000 [spectators]," Newman said.
"If the weather fines up a little bit then we'll certainly get that but if the rain comes down people will still come, but probably not in the same [numbers] they would have if this weather continues."
A NAB Challenge match scheduled at Mackay between St Kilda and the Brisbane Lions in March 2016 was called off due to wet weather.
Peter Ryan joined The Age in 2017 having covered AFL as a senior reporter with AFL Media.
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