Queensland floods force Brisbane Lions, Gold Coast Titans to relocate to Sydney for AFL and NRL games

Gold Coast will relocate their NRL preparations to Sydney for the clash with Canterbury because of the devastating impact of ex-Tropical Cyclone Alfred on their training base.

The Titans play the Bulldogs at Belmore Sports Ground on Sunday but are unable to train at their Parkwood base due to flooding in the aftermath of the cyclone.

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The Dolphins, who are unable to train at their own stadium in Redcliffe, just north of Brisbane, are investigating whether they do the same and move to Newcastle to prepare early for their showdown with the Knights on Thursday night.

Meanwhile the Brisbane Lions will fly into Sydney on Wednesday to get an extra day of outdoor training in after losing access to their facilities for the best part of a week.

Titans boss Steve Mitchell said water was sitting well above the crossbar on the team's Gold Coast training field and that the safety of players and staff was paramount.

He said the club's dojo facility, used for warm-up, wrestle and indoor training, had also been damaged by the wild conditions.

The Titans will move to Sydney this week following the floods in south-east Queensland. (Getty Images: Scott Gardiner)

"With our high-performance centre unusable for training this week, we will send our team to Sydney early to ensure they can properly prepare for our first game of the season," Mitchell said.

"At the end of what will have been a big week for our community, we hope that a great result against the Bulldogs on Sunday will bring our members and fans some much-needed joy.

"For many people on the coast and across our region, the last few days have been challenging to say the least as families have dealt with the rain and winds that have battered their homes.

"Our thoughts as a club are for those across our region that are doing it tough as a result of this weather event and immense rainfall that has followed.

"Working with our players, staff and their families, we first needed to check on the welfare of our people to make sure they were OK, and we've offered our support to those who need it most."

The Dolphins flew home from Friday night's 16-14 loss to South Sydney on Saturday afternoon.

They were initially set to take an early charter flight on Saturday morning, but there were not enough air traffic controllers available in Queensland for them to make that trip.

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The squad was eventually able to leave and land in Toowoomba in the afternoon, before catching a bus back to home base.

Three players — Mark Nicholls, Kodi Nikorima and 18th man Kenny Bromwich — sat out the Rabbitohs game to be with loved ones and prepare their homes for the flooding that was forecast.

The Dolphins were scheduled to fly to Newcastle on Wednesday to prepare for the round-two clash, but may leave earlier if a suitable training venue cannot be found.

Lions general manager of football Danny Daly said he was confident the club would make a bright start to the season despite the interruptions.

"These things happen unfortunately in life, and you just need to be resilient, be calm about it and work your way through it. So, I've got no doubt our preparation will be spot on leading into our game against Sydney," Daly said.

"We have the players back in the Club today (Monday) and they will have a bit of a hit-out indoors to get themselves up and going again.

"We have been chatting to the AFL today and they have been fantastic through this whole past week in accommodating our needs and everything that we needed to do.

"We will train somewhere tomorrow, whether it is the Gabba or Brighton Homes Arena, which are both pretty waterlogged at the minute as you can imagine.

"We will head to Sydney on Wednesday then get a training in somewhere on Thursday on a dry ground as preparation for the game on Saturday, so we are just working through all the logistics."

AAP/ABC

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