Finishing touches being applied to Hands Oval ahead of AFL game between North Melbourne and West Coast

The finishing touches are being applied to Hands Oval ahead of a history-making day on Sunday which will see the South West’s home of football stage the first ever AFL game for premiership points in regional WA. North Melbourne, the State Government and City of Bunbury in November agreed to a three-year deal which will see the Kangaroos host one game per season the Bunbury venue for three years. Hands Oval had a $19.5 million redevelopment marked as complete at the start of the year and an additional $5.7 million in upgrades, mainly to the ground’s lighting and broadcasting capabilities, have been ongoing. A pre-season game between the two sides was played at the ground in front of just over 7000 people in March. South West Football League general manager Jason Crowe said some last-minute works at the home of the league were still being completed but all would be done by the end of the week. “There’s a lot of work still to be done before we get there . . . but it’s extremely exciting that we’re finally getting what we’ve been aiming for,” he said. “There’s a lot of things people wouldn’t see that are now happening behind the scenes. “Everything from the (pre-season) game has made it easier, adding to what we already had. “Obviously the stadium building has made it all possible.” As well as the new permanent fixtures, which include a 750-seat grandstand building, six temporary grandstands will be in place on the day, supporting a crowd which is expected to be just shy of 15,000. The clash has been scheduled on Victoria’s King’s Birthday long weekend, with North Melbourne’s Victorian fans having been encouraged to take advantage of new direct flights between Melbourne and Busselton. Bunbury mayor Jaysen Miguel said the game would be an economic boon for the city and feedback from the region’s hospitality providers had been particularly strong, with pubs, clubs and restaurants expecting capacity crowds over the weekend. “We’ve seen the data from the pre-season game now on the spend map score, which talks about a 31 per cent increase in activity over that long weekend as opposed to the long weekend a year earlier,” he said. “There’s always different factors that can affect some of that stuff but clearly you have to say the footy was a big contributor to that. “Fast forward to now where we’re expecting double the numbers to what we had, it’s pretty exciting to see what that would be.” Despite thunderstorms smashing WA’s south coast over the course of this week, mostly sunny conditions were forecast for Sunday at time of publication, which Mr Miguel said was “very much a relief”. “That long-range forecast looked pretty dark there for a while,” he said. “The number of events we have set up around the city over the next couple of days, we really wanted those to go ahead. “It’s looking good, but regardless, it’s going to be a good day.” Mr Crowe said he was confident Hands Oval’s surface, which has not hosted SWFL football since May 18, would be able to comfortably deal with the deluge and present in perfect condition. “We couldn’t have asked for better weather, going on the current forecast,” he said. “We seem to be getting rain during the week and then fine weekends, it wasn’t supposed to be fine for the (WA Day weekend) derby either. “Rain would’ve been a bit of a dampener with the lack of undercover area, but fine and 20C is the best we could’ve hoped for.” Tickets for the game were in hot demand, with the first general admission release selling out inside less than half an hour and some smaller later releases going just as quickly. A number of activities will be taking place across the course of the weekend, including free entry at Hands Oval for both sides’ captain’s runs on Saturday and a fan zone at Bicentennial Square for the game on Sunday. Mr Miguel said all of the city’s residents would have a chance to enjoy the weekend, regardless of whether they had a ticket to the game. “What we want to really make sure is that it does become a really good and successful event, because we want everyone talking about that so they’ve got the opportunity to come back in future years,” he said.