What the crystal ball offers up more generally, though, is something that can’t be foretold with any necessary accuracy. Cricket Tasmania this week recalled its entire Sheffield Shield squad from Brisbane, fearful that a score of players and staff might otherwise be captured within a lockdown/lockout vortex ignited by a single-digit number of cases in Queensland. Cautious, yes. Ridiculous, maybe.

What actual hope there can reasonably be then, that The Ashes shall proceed as scheduled in less than two months - the first Test is, again, in Brisbane - is anybody’s guess.

The abiding fear that England’s cricketers and their families will refuse to accept Australia’s international quarantine arrangements is perfectly legitimate. That said, I’m not exactly sure when a touring Ashes squad travelling with families became a quasi-mandatory precondition, to a Test series proceeding.

The same goes for the Australian Open, scheduled to commence in January. It’s telling that, right now, just four months out from the start of a tournament that attracts half-a-million spectators in an average year, there are no tickets yet on sale.

All of these matters duly considered though, it’s what’s shortly on the horizon for the professional athletes plying their respective trades throughout Terra Australis, which might be of the most pressing concern.

It’s reasonably certain that the governing bodies of Australia’s premier professional sporting codes - the AFL and NRL, being prime examples - won’t mandate that athletes participating in their leagues be inoculated against COVID-19 as a precondition to continuing participation. Analysed through any prism of reasonableness and sensibility, this stance makes little sense; the reluctance smacks of kowtowing.

It’s increasingly certain that unvaccinated professional footballers won’t be able to perform the required functions of their employment.

Though the red carpet of welcome has been furiously unfurled in Queensland in 2021, does anyone reckon Palaszczuk will reprise that level of generosity next year, for unvaccinated footy players who object on conscientious, religious or cultural grounds, and where the objector holds no medical exemption?

That’s hardly a probable outcome. It’s an increasingly certain future reality that unvaccinated professional footballers in Australia absolutely won’t be able to perform the required, inherent functions of their employment, absent having been vaccinated against COVID-19. AFL teams domiciled in Victoria won’t be able to travel for matches in Perth, because airlines likely won’t allow them to fly and The Republic of Western Australia won’t let them set foot in the place. Same goes for Sydney NRL teams journeying to Queensland.

Already both Travis Trice and Tai Webster have been released from their NBL contracts with the Illawarra Hawks and New Zealand Breakers, respectively, because of their stance against mandatory vaccination. The inescapable reality is that there’s a veritable tsunami of similar cases that will soon strike in other codes. For a variety of sensitive reasons, which must be respected at least, rugby league is especially vulnerable.

Sports codes, and the employer franchises that operate within each code’s league framework, have immutable obligations imposed on them to ensure the safety of all of their employees. That’s a difficult obligation to discharge in a contact sport-playing and training environment. Players work in close proximity daily, and that dynamic doesn’t fit with a proportion of employees remaining unvaccinated against the ravages of a virulent and deadly disease, for reasons other than a justifiable medical exemption.

Loading

Earlier this week, the full bench of the Fair Work Commission, in a split decision, refused an application for leave to appeal, made by a dismissed former employee of a NSW aged care provider.
The employee had eventually been fired in 2020 after refusing an influenza vaccine. The refusal was allegedly made because the employee suffered an allergic reaction to the flu shot in an earlier year, but likely also because the dismissed employee preferred non-scientific methods of disease prevention.

One of the bases relied upon by the Commission’s majority, in refusing leave to appeal, was that the public interest weighed “entirely against” granting permission to appeal in the circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic, lest the Commission give encouragement to spurious objections to lawful workplace vaccination requirements.

Party time (of sorts) it might well be in Brisbane this weekend. But oh my, what curious times beckon thereafter.

Sports news, results and expert commentary. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.