Tens of thousands of travellers have been stranded after dozens of flights out of Melbourne, Tasmania and New Zealand were cancelled due to the ash plume from Chile's Puyehue volcano streamed into Australian airspace.
Referees Gavin Badger, Tony De Las Heras as well as officials Jeff Younis, Adam Reid and Bernard Sutton are scheduled to run the rule over the AAMI Park clash but were forced into finding an alternative way of getting to Melbourne.
There were fears the match officials would struggle to make it to the match with their original Qantas flight in doubt of getting off the ground.
But the NRL said in a statement the five-man refereeing squad successfully boarded a flight for Albury this morning and will drive to Melbourne in ample time for the 7:00pm (AEST) kick off this evening.
Both the Melbourne Storm and the Sydney Roosters are already in Melbourne.
The NRL's head of referees Bill Harrigan confirmed earlier to Grandstand the officials would drive from Albury to Melbourne.
"Our match officials were originally booked on an 11:00am flight today - obviously with everything that's happened last night, in consultation with [NRL football operations manager] Nathan McGuirk, we put them on to a flight at 8:15 this morning to Albury," Herrigan told Grandstand.
"Our boys can do their best to get down there as long as we're at the ground about an hour before the game."
But tonight's clash between the side's under-20s squads has been cancelled with the Roosters' youngers unable to board their flight to Melbourne. That match will be rescheduled.
Meanwhile, the Wests Tigers remain in Auckland, New Zealand because of flight cancellations. They are hoping to return to Australia tomorrow.
The AFL has also been affected, with Essendon's preperations for their Saturday match against North Melbourne being disrupted.
The Bombers were due to fly out of Perth last night after their 34-point loss to Fremantle at Subiaco Oval, but will only be able to fly out later today.
Tags: sport, australian-football-league, rugby-league, nrl, australia, nsw, sydney-2000, vic, melbourne-3000 First posted June 13, 2011 08:54:00
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