Cricket North administrator David Fry says he spent a night fielding "angry calls" after a football game was staged at Youngtown Oval one night before the second day of a cricket match.
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South Launceston's NTFAW side hosted Old Launcestonians in a practice match on Friday night, raising concerns about the batting team being disadvantaged by a damaged pitch the following day.
Bulldogs president Joey Crawford said his club had done its best to make other arrangements after being notified by City of Launceston on Wednesday that it could not use the full ground.
South Launceston staff removed the square cover while the game was played, but left the wicket cover in place and used volunteers and witches' hats to keep the pitch from being damaged.
With less than a point separating top-three sides Mowbray and Launceston in second grade, Fry said South's conduct was disrespectful.
"We’re going to have a meeting with the council and the football club at the end of the cricket season to try and get something sorted, but it has been a serious situation where we’re actually in the middle of a match," said Fry, who also stood on the pitch while the match was being played.
"The disregard the football club has had for our requests and the council’s demand that they not play over that pitch is just breathtaking.
"It’s fairly upsetting, we really need to come to some sort of agreement with them about what’s happening there.
"There’s plenty of other examples of how football, soccer and cricket on a single ground can be managed as long as everyone is respectful of the others’ requirements."
Fry said Cricket North's relationship with NTCA tenants Old Scotch Football Club was evidence that the two codes could work together harmoniously.
"There’s been a lot of comments by football players saying we shouldn’t be there - I think that’s ignorant and uneducated.
"Grounds all over the world are used for various codes of football and cricket."
Crawford said City of Launceston had originally approved South to host three Friday night matches before being made aware of an administrative error.
South has since made other arrangements for the remaining two matches.
"The reality was that we changed our bookings for every other game going forwards but we weren’t able to make an alternate plan," Crawford said.
"It was an administrative issue that we didn’t get enough notice to solve.
"I had assurance from my women's director that no-one went near the cricket pitch on the night and they put extra precautions in place and let the other team know carefully to keep out of that space.
"Unfortunately these kind of things happen when there’s lots of people doing lots of things at the same time and I’ve tried to get on the phone with their [Launceston Cricket Club] president to express that."