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Long stays, North Sydney and charters in Bears' plans
Scott Bailey, AAP • October 7th, 2026 1:18 pm
Perth Bears' head coach Mal Meninga faces the extra challenge of regular long-distance travel | Photo: James Worsfold/AAP
Perth officials are considering chartered flights for select trips, travel three days before games and using North Sydney Oval as an intermittent training base on entry to the NRL.
Wednesday marked six weeks until Bears players officially come together for the first time in Perth for an induction day, before pre-season training begins on November 23 at the club's WACA base.
Perth will then face the biggest logistical challenge of any team in-season, with four-hour flights at minimum for all away games and five-hour trips home.
Officials have spent recent months speaking with other West Australian franchises, mapping out the best way to handle a season of immense travel.
Plans include travelling well in advance of any matches, and sometimes staying on the east coast when there are back-to-back away games.
Perth Bears will be looking to utilise the North Sydney Bears' North Sydney Oval home | Photo: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
"The science tells us it takes 24 hours per time zone, so we've got to travel across two," Perth's football boss Gareth Holmes told AAP.
"It'll be case-by-case, but as a general rule, we're probably looking at travelling three days out.
"It's going to be based on what time we play, how far we've got to travel. Is it Auckland, is it Sydney, is it Townsville? There's a few variables."
NRL teams generally travel one day before playing, while some fly out two days before games. Outside of the Warriors, no trips involve time-zone travel.
Even the West Australian AFL teams usually travel two days out, but trips to Melbourne are shorter than Sydney or Brisbane.
Bears players are going to become very familiar with Perth airport during the NRL season | Photo: Richard Wainwright/AAP
Perth are therefore hopeful of some blocks of home and away games, with training at North Sydney an option in Sydney while also having Brisbane Tigers as a feeder team in Queensland.
"From a player wellbeing perspective to not have to fly every week is something that we'd love to avoid wherever possible," added Holmes, who'll be working alongside inaugural head coach Mal Meninga.
"There's a couple of performance centres in Sydney, and we would like to make sure that we've got a real visible presence around North Sydney.
"So utilising North Sydney Oval for training and making sessions available to our members on the east coast.
"There's some good hotel options and performance facilities around North Sydney. It's important we embrace that (link)."
While travel looms as a challenge for Perth, they are desperate to also use it in their favour with an imposing home ground at HBF Park.
Perth Bears will be hoping to make HBF Park into a fortress for their home matches | Photo: James Worsfold/AAP
A lesson taken from other sports is the use of charter flights, particularly for matches outside of capital cities or late games on short turnarounds.
"One example I could give for a charter flight is you can't get a direct flight out of Townsville," Holmes said.
"Or if we were to play a Saturday or a Sunday night in Sydney and needed to get into a Friday night game in Perth, we may need to look at getting out straight after.
"Fremantle (made the AFL grand final) and put charter flights on for their teams this season. Obviously it's working for them."
