Since Conyers' men beat Mudgee in the preliminary final on August 7 to set up a grand final meeting against Parkes in Parkes, the state of the COVID-19 pandemic worsened and regional New South Wales was placed into lockdown.

The students had still hoped the grand final would go ahead at a later date, but on Monday the Central West Rugby Union board revealed its tough decision to abandon the remainder of 2021 competitions.

As Parkes had been the first side through to the grand final, beating CSU 31-19 in the major semi-final, they were declared champions.

"I would've liked to see the boys get a joint premiership, but I understand the decision the board made," Conyers said.

"When you see we were only three points behind them on the table at the end of the year, that shows there wasn't much between us.

"We had good fun this year, the boys all learned something, I guess that's all you can ask isn't it ... but it does leave an empty feeling in your stomach, that you've left something undone."

That feeling of leaving something undone stems from just how close CSU had come to running out on the field for their second grand final in three years.

In 2019 CSU had lost the major semi-final, but on grand final day playing away from home, had managed to upset Narromine. Conyers felt like that scenario could very well have played out this year.

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"It was just a shame we played the major semi-final, you get so damn close, you get to a grand final," he said.

"If we hadn't played that major semi-final we wouldn't have had so many expectations.

"It all sort of mirrored what happened in 2019 with our progression in those last few weeks, we really worked hard. I had five or six guest coaches up this year.

"I could see the way they were peaking at the right time, their mindset was really positive and we played really well against Mudgee.

"It's just really frustrating because I think we could have got it this year."

As well as the frustration, Conyers also felt devastated for his playing group. They had put in plenty of hard work to qualify for the grand final and for a number of players, including Angus Dunn who has been playing rugby for more than two decades, it would have been their first decider.

"We will probably lose a handful of guys next year, really good players, they'll all graduate and leave. These opportunities don't come around every day and I feel really sorry for the boys because they worked really hard," Conyers said.

"They were a pretty devastated bunch of fellas.

"A lot of them hadn't played in a grand final, I really felt sorry for Gus with the amount of work he put in. I told him I got my first one when I was 26 and he's 26 this year so he was trying to emulate me, unfortunately he's not going to get that chance.

"Parkes, they beat us three out of four times during the year, I have no qualms about that, but we beat ourselves two out of those three times. We scored more tries than them."

Conyers is now hoping CSU will get a chance to stage a presentation day as "some small consolation".

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