Centennials Bulls out of Royal Hotel Cup with one more team to be axed

The matter of what structure was best for the competition was brought forward by Orange and District Cricket Association president Mark Frecklington during an ODCA meeting on Wednesday night.

During the discussions, Frecklington said that while the initial hope was to make it a ten team competition for 2022/23 - following the axing of Lithgow and Kinross - the viability just wasn't there.

"We've gone with an increased number of teams the last few years and it just becomes problematic trying to fit in a reasonably sized competition," he said following the meeting.

"Sundays are getting harder to find and harder to fit around everything else. It was really a decision based on that."

But even before the matter of dropping the league down to eight teams could be brought to the ODCA meeting, Centennials Bulls had already made the decision that much easier by saying they would not be taking part in the competition this season.

"(Bulls) just said they were going to focus on first grade this season. They told us at the BOIDC meeting that they weren't going to nominate for Royal Hotel Cup," Frecklington said.

"That wasn't the reason for (making it eight teams), but it possibly aided."

So with nine BOIDC teams vying for eight T20 spots, who would be the unlucky side to miss out?

At Wednesday's meeting, Frecklington said that all four Orange first grade sides - CYMS, Centrals, Cavaliers and Orange City - would be guaranteed places, as well as the two sides from Bathurst that made the competition's semi-final round last season - Rugby Union and St Pat's. That means one of ORC, City Colts and Bathurst City will miss out.

After some discussion, it was agreed that a play-in style tournament between the three sides would determine who would make the final eight.

"It's an Orange competition, so I think the Orange sides should be included one way or another and then from there, we work out how many teams we fit in," Frecklington said.

"I think if there's more than eight who want to play, then a qualification phase which we can cater for works.

"Even if we end up with Centennials wanting to come back in the seasons to come, we can handle ten teams with some kind of qualification to eliminate a couple of them to get down to eight."

So unless one of the nine remaining teams pulls the pin on their T20 hopes, it will come down to a qualification phase between ORC, City Colts and Bathurst City.

Frecklington did say that players who don't feature in the eight-team tournament would still be eligible to compete.

"Any of those teams who do play and don't qualify, their players will be eligible to be guest players for other teams so they don't miss out," he said.

"I know it probably gets trickier on how you might work that, but if there are players in there who want to play, they can link up with other teams to play in the main draw."

A draw and start date are yet to be confirmed.

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