The Ballarat Football League has scrapped a night game planned for the City Oval on Saturday owing to uncertainty with lighting.
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The Redan and East Point fixture will revert to a day-time schedule.
The change follows a lighting failure in the first night match at the upgraded City Oval on Saturday, when the ground was blacked with three minutes remaining in the last quarter of the senior encounter between Redan and Lake Wendouree.
The match was called off after play was unable to resume within 30 minutes.
In accordance with AFL Victoria rules, Lakers was awarded the win as it was leading (by 13 points) at the time a generator powering ground lights failed.
BFL operations manager Shane Anwyl said given the uncertainty that surrounded the main power supply, the decision had been made to alter the fixture to standard day start times.
Work has been underway this week to restore mains power to the entire City Oval reserve, which will remove any future need to use a generator.
The BFL in conjunction with the City of Ballarat have confirmed the best way to provide clubs with certainty at the moment is to move all matches from night to standard day start times.
Anwyl said the BFL remained committed to night games and would continue to work with the City of Ballarat and clubs on improving facilities to cope with the needs for such matches.
“We’re supportive of night football and won’t be deterred by the unfortunate circumstances that saw last weekend’s senior game cut short. Night football has been extremely successful this year with clubs hosting such games experiencing larger than average crowds,” he said.
Despite the change to Redan and East Point game, the BFL will still have two night games on Saturday. Ballarat plays North Ballarat City at Alfredton and Sunbury is home to Melton.
