You can feel it right when a bowler seizes up the bat and readies to deliver. Right before a gun fires off a sprint. Lining up for goal - in any sport. Or, right when a captain is about to lead their team into the playing arena.

This is a little like what ticking over into 2022 feels like in the sporting world.

Anything could unfold.

There is no certainty to how community sport will take to the field under a cloud more ominous than dark skies for cricket finals.

The past two years we have had summer finals wiped or under threat and intermittent to near non-existent winter sport under pandemic conditions. Major events have been restricted or scratched. Some minor sports have been in recession.

We are hanging in there this summer, perhaps a little wary but unbowed.

At the same time professional sport offers the niggling reminder this summer that there are no guarantees.

Non-playing members found positive for COVID-19 in the English cricket camp had the Boxing Day Test on a knife's edge and now coach Chris Silverwood will miss the fourth Test in Sydney after contracting the virus.

A-League soccer matches and National Basketball League matches have been postponed due to COVID-19 impacts.

So, with the start of a new year there is the buzz of new seasons ahead or that crunch time coming up in summer sports. There is that thrill edging out a sense it could all unravel again.

Our volunteers and sports administrators have done an incredible, power of effort to keep community sport alive, adapting to constantly changing regulations and health advice - just to get athletes on the field.

It is a complete understatement to say this has been gruelling on clubs to stay afloat, not just for players but for everyone involved in their game, including the spectators of whom many have been barred at times from even watching. Or cheering.

We know things will not be quite normal, despite booster jabs and other health measures to keep the virus at bay. The virus' impacts will still be felt on our grounds.

All we can do is prepare the best we can and keep adapting to the fast-evolving state of play.

Ballarat clubs have proven resilient and prepared to try new things, even against the unlikely - like Central Highlands Football League efforts to keep finals hopes alive last season.

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If sport can teach us anything, it is in the tough moments there are chances to create something special. Even if only right now, that is to find ways to keep our sport in action - safely - while the pandemic is a dominant player.

New Year's Day should be a day for our top runners to step up their sprint game to the blaring, festive sounds of bagpipes in Maryborough. For a second consecutive New Year's Day, Princes Park will be silent.

One can only hope our efforts now will get all community sport back up and running.

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