AIS shuts down possibility of forming part of an NRL cocoon

Instead their focus, when they reopen, will be to get our Olympic and Paralympic athletes back up to speed as quickly as possible ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Games.

Canberra Raiders chief executive Don Furner is part of the NRL's Operation Apollo, which has been set up to consider all of the options available for if-or-when the competition resumes.

One of the models they're examining is centralising all the players in one or several locations to isolate them from the outside world and play the games behind closed doors.

Furner raised the AIS as an option, while a Gladstone resort in Queensland is another that's been tabled.

The AIS would've been an ideal location, given it has a stadium, accommodation - capacity of up to 650 people - kitchens, and training and recovery facilities all within walking distance.

But they've been shut down for the past two weeks, with only a few members of the NBA Academy still there - because they couldn't go home.

The AIS were yet to have any formal approach and an NRL cocoon wasn't seen as a realistic option for them.

Instead they expect to be working round the clock helping athletes prepare for the postponed Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic games, which will now be held in 2021.

The AIS was being mooted as a possible training base for those athletes before Australia went into national lockdown.

"The AIS campus is closed to public and high-performance training at the moment," an AIS spokesperson said.

"When the AIS re-opens, the immediate priority on site will be to help prepare Australia's Olympic, Paralympic and Commonwealth Games athletes, especially with a focus on next year's Tokyo Games."

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Furner said Operation Apollo was looking into all contingencies so they can be ready to resume as soon as the COVID-19 pandemic begins to subside.

They're putting together plans for a July 1 restart, a middle option and then the worst-case September 1 deadline.

He said having all the players together in one location could reduce the risk of them contracting the coronavirus because they would have even less contact with the general public.

"That's fine [the AIS aren't an option], there's only one way to find out," Furner said.

"We haven't got to that point yet. No one's spoken to anybody. It's just are there scenarios where players could be put into a cocoon-type arrangement?

"If it's not there, it could be somewhere else. You've got to look at all options.

"If you put them into a lockdown type arrangement in somewhere like that you might see less people, the risk might be no more than if they're in their homes and going down the shops.

"So if the risk is mitigated an the health experts say there's no greater risk, and the governments say yes it's OK.

"All those boxes have to be ticked, but we have to look at that scenario because the competition might be able to start up but it's going to be no crowds."