Central West Rugby Union: Bathurst Bulldogs and CSU hold out for developments around finals

Central West Rugby Union had already made an adjustment to their finals schedule after last week's initial lockdown announcement - moving to first versus fourth and second versus third knockout semi-finals - but now those fixtures are not looking likely unless finals are pushed back.

If CWRU sticks rigidly to its initial proposal, and doesn't push back matches, then all competitions would move straight to a first versus second grand final.

That would leave Bulldogs women and CSU first grade men as the only Bathurst teams still in the mix for a title.

Bulldogs first, second and third grade all reached their Blowes Clothing Cup finals series but missed out on a top two spot.

However, one major consideration for the CWRU board to make is the dangers of resuming the competition with little training time, which poses an injury concern for players.

Tink said even if the lockdown lifts there's no guarantee that you'd be able to jump straight back into matches.

"If we stick with our original plan of grand finals on August 28, our guys would not have done any contact training for three weeks," he said.

"They would need to do at least a week, minimum, of training and we're very conscious of that.

"That's a feeling that would be shared between all player and clubs. There's nothing more important to us than the safety of our players. Responsible decision need to be made around that facet of the game.

"We need to be making those calls while taking into account COVID concerns."

There has not yet been any update on what community sport may look like post-lockdown and if any ongoing restrictions, a cap on crowd numbers for example, would be introduced.

"You go back to last year and you were only allowed 500 people at a ground and that includes the players, match officials, and people who cook the barbecue," Tink said.

"We have not been given any indication of what community sport would look like if and when we come out of lockdown.

"Do we play grand finals with no crowds? There's far too unknowns here at the moment."

While conversations with clubs in the coming days will decide a course of action for the end of the season, one thing Tink is certain of is everyone in his region will be in the same boat.

Teams from towns like Orange and Cowra may not be in locations where there are currently active COVID cases, but that doesn't mean they will get preferential treatment.

"We don't talk just first grade in Central West, we talk about all our competitions," Tink said.

"Central West Rugby is a community and with Dubbo's ongoing situation it makes it very difficult for us to speak with any authority on what the future looks like."

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