With Wade Park covered in snow and ice Orange CYMS president Dave Penny said his club had no choice but to call Sunday's Group 10 Rugby League fixtures against Mudgee off, with worries over safety cited as the main concern.
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It wasn't a decision taken lightly and Penny did say there was thought put into calling off the lower grades and delaying a decision on the premier league clash considering its importance, but he explained his club's concerns were as much about the travelling Dragons' players and supporters.
"There was a lot of phone calls involved and it was a tough call to make, but we had to do it and everyone's largely been positive about it," Penny said.
Obviously you'd love to reschedule and play all of them, but we'll have to wait and see how it works out.
- CYMS president Dave Penny, on Sunday's games.
"(CYMS secretary) Mandy (Moore) and I made the call, Wade Park was covered in snow and it was about safety on and off the field. There was concerns over the players' safety on the field but, honestly, we didn't really want Mudgee having to potential travel through wet, cold and icy conditions either."
Penny and Group 10 chairman Linore Zamparini both indicated every possible avenue will be explored to reschedule the games and the most realistic option looks to be a mid-week make-up.
Premier League is, naturally, the priority in terms of rescheduling the games however the reserve grade, under-18 and league tag games all look likely to have an impact on both clubs' final standings.
Outside CYMS' reserve grade side, all the other teams remain in contention for the top five and in a couple of cases their respective minor premierships. If the games are abandoned and draw points awarded, that could have a significant impact on their campaigns.
In the top grade Mudgee are third and can drop to fourth mathematically, which would deny them a second chance come finals time, while CYMS are one point adrift of fifth-placed Cowra. The round 17 clash could potentially make or break their season.
"They are pretty important games, especially premier league, so we'll have to sit down and discuss our options in terms of rescheduling them. Obviously you'd love to reschedule and play all of them, but we'll have to wait and see how it works out," Penny said.
WATCH: A fair indication of how heavy the snowfall was to force the cancellation of Sunday's games...
The results of next week's final round games - CYMS play Hawks and Mudgee face Lithgow - could play a big role in whether it's necessary to reschedule and play the games in the days afterward, however the short turnaround that would leave sides before the first week of finals would need to be considered.
"It's still a work in progress but obviously we'll do everything we can to make sure the games that need to be played, are played. That will probably be mid-week this week or next week, if it's possible," Zamparini said.
The decision followed the postponing of Oberon's games against Blayney on Saturday as well, although Zamparini said that loomed as likely as soon as the forecast for snow became apparent.
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Originally Group 10 had a wet weather round set down for August 4 but that was shifted forward to alleviate pressure on representative round players, although that obviously wouldn't have made a difference in this circumstance.
"I did think we'd have Oberon out this weekend and while we knew places like Orange would get snow, I guess we didn't quite know how much," Zamparini said.
"We did have that spare weekend in the draw but unfortunately that's been and gone now, and we'd used that anyway, you can't control the weather though so we'll just move ahead as best we can."
Sunday's games between Bathurst St Pat's and Orange Hawks and Panthers and Cowra were set to go ahead as planned, in Bathurst, at time of publication.
The inclement weather also impacted a number of other sports around the region. All of Saturday's Premier League Hockey fixtures were abandoned and declared nil-all draws, while Orange District Football Association cancelled its senior games too, as did Orange Netball Association with the exception of division one.
AFL Central West also postponed games. All of Central West Rugby Union's games went ahead as scheduled.
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