While Waratahs' veteran Ryan Sinclair is happy to return to the pitch in 2020, he's concerned that an overly late start would complicate things too much in both the local competition and the Western Premier League.
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It's an untimely hurdle for football in the Central West as this winter was set to mark the return of the WPL, an 8-team competition made up of club squads from different towns around the region.
"We're happy to be part of that competition... we just don't know what kind of structure they'll go with," Sinclair said.
"We've been told it's going to run on a home-and-away basis but how do you decide who gets the home games if there's not enough time.
"I think gala day weekends would be a good idea where Waratahs host it one weekend and another team the next. We'll be keen to play we're just unsure of what the structure will be right now."
The Waratahs haven't started talking among themselves about what their plans are and the 20-strong playing group they had before the season will need to re-confirm their commitment to the shortened winter campaign.
"We haven't really chatted about it much but we'll get together in the next week and get a gauge on who's keen to play and go from there," he said.
"It all depends on when the restrictions are lifted and when we can actually play. A couple of us had a yarn and we don't know if it would be worth it if it goes too far into July without a start time.
"It's not up to us what happens, though. It's up to the administrators and we'll rely on the Waratahs' committee to put forward what they want to happen."
During times like these, you'd expect a football tragic like Sinclair to be ruing half-a-season on the sidelines but the builder has used it as a time to prioritise other things for once.
"It hasn't been too bad for me," he said.
"I've been building my house and that's been good... it's been a little bit of a reality check I suppose."
Football NSW announced an immediate return to training on Thursday night and while Sinclair's expecting plenty of his teammates to arrive whenever they schedule a session, he doesn't know what their motivation levels will be like with so much uncertainty.
"It's tough at the minute," he said.
"I don't know how many people will be keen to train without a definite return time."
Something that works in the favour of grassroots football in the region is its self-sufficient nature and Sinclair likes the fact that crowd numbers won't be an issue if the sport is to return.
"There's obviously been teams from other codes that have dropped out but we don't rely on money for player payments," he said.
"We do have sponsors but they don't throw around the same money they do in rugby league.
"We probably only get 10-15 people turn up to watch us play so we don't need gate or canteen takings as much as other sports do."
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