The AFL will decide on Thursday whether the long-running Indigenous All-Stars exhibition match will go ahead at Darwin's TIO Stadium this year.

There has been growing speculation the game against Richmond could be cancelled or moved to another location after recent heavy rain restricted maintenance of the main oval.

The NTFL season draw was scheduled to give TIO Stadium a two round break before the All-Stars match on February 5.

But last weekend two games were moved to Gardens Oval in Darwin to extend the stadium's spell and to give crews a chance to fix the ailing playing surface.

AFLNT football operations manager Anthony Venes said he was confident the ground would be ready by the time AFL representatives inspected the oval on Thursday.

"Keeping it dry has probably been the hardest part," he told AAP.

"We're doing everything we can to make sure it's good to go.

"You're talking about a region that gets 1.6 metres of rain on average each year in a short period of time."

He said it was nothing new for playing fields across the Top End to be impacted by rain at this time of year, but what had changed was the expected standard of the surface.

"If you go back 20 years ago on the ground we used to play these games on each Australia Day weekend was far different ... they used to run around in the bog.

"Now we've got to make sure the grounds don't chew up and that they cope with the pressure and stress of footy because injuries cost money.

"There is so much more money at stake now, so obviously that puts more and more pressure on us to make sure we get it right.

"The clubs don't want to relieve the players if they get injured, which is fair enough."

Venes said the maintenance regime for the NT government run stadium was dictated by the AFL.

"Every year it's been said that it should be played here and it should be played there."

He said it was possible an Indigenous All-Stars game, which originally began in the NT in 1994, would be played in Alice Springs in 2013.

He said it would be years before the game was shifted interstate, if ever.

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