BATHURST Panthers captain-coach Doug Hewitt was confident he had the squad to make it Group 10 premiership treble in 2020, but now his men in black won't get the chance to prove him right.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
On Tuesday night, in the wake of ongoing coronavirus restrictions, Group 10 clubs voted unanimously to cancel the premier league, first division and league tag competitions for season 2020.
Even after Wednesday morning's state government announcement that senior community sport had the green light to commence as of July 1, it came too late to save those Group 10 competitions.
Hewitt, who guided Panthers to a 12-10 win over Cowra in the 2018 Group 10 premier league grand final and a 9-8 victory against Mudgee in last year's decider, was naturally disappointed.
However, he felt the right decision had been made.
"A call had to be made, everyone was in limbo and with our sport, a lot of the sponsors are pubs and clubs and they were amongst the hardest hit by this," the star halfback said.
"So if you go along and play there would be a lot of clubs that would only drive themselves into more debt next year and so on. It's a tough call, especially when you do a full pre-season, but then again when you have so much time off and not much time to prepare, i think it's probably the right call in the end.
"It had been in limbo for so long, but when you finally hear it you are a bit disappointed. Once again the decision had to be made and I'm glad I didn't have to make it."
Hewitt said it has "been weird" not to be spending time with his players at training and in games so far this season.
For him the biggest disappointment to come from the cancellation of the competition is that he will not get the chance to push for another title alongside his good mates. He felt the 2020 squad was even stronger than those of the past two years given the likes of prop Josh Starling and utility back Jeremy Gordon signed with the club.
"I don't think I've missed a season since I started like back in under 7s. I had a season off playing when I was there up at Tweed, but I was still there around the club and training," he said.
"That's the hardest thing, with the big pre-season we put in things were shaping up pretty well. I know I've had a decent team over the past couple of years winning the two titles, but I think this year we only got tougher again.
"We were in good stead looking at the three-peat, but I guess we're just going to have to bide our time now and look ahead to next year."
Hewitt said most of the Panthers squad had been keen to play prior to the news of the cancellation and will no doubt share in his disappointment.
"I spoke to most of our players prior to this call to see if they were keen to get back if we could possibly start training again. A lot of them were up beat, they just wanted to get out of the house and into it, but within that mindset because they'd had a lot of time off, they knew it would take a fair bit to get back," he said.
"In saying that, I think once a couple of boys got back into it everyone would have got around it, so I'm guessing a lot of them are disappointed as well today."
