It's terrific these young guys in the side have been able to play rugby league this season, that's not in question.

And for players like Blayney's Liam Henry, a young prop with designs on having a crack in Sydney, being able to get some game time under his belt this year will benefit looking ahead to 2021, or even 2022 - who knows when competitions will return to normal.

But the size of the Rams region is both a strength and a weakness at this level.

Few areas have the sort of player pool we boast here in Western. The quality is there. But that large area makes getting those players together to train impossible.

Cohesion suffers. Interest wanes. Western battles. We tend to see it year-on-year.

It must be a constant frustration for officials and coaches at that level.

So why not avoid that hassle and play to our strengths?

Dubbo CYMS' sole focus for years has been themselves.

That Fishies-first mentality has been scoffed at, even loathed by most in Group 11 for a long time, but in this case it's the perfect play, one we should have adopted here in the eastern half of Western as well.

Instead of a young Rams team - essentially on a hiding to nothing - why didn't a Group 10 side nominate and ask to have other players in the group on loan for the campaign?

Bathurst Panthers, the two-time defending premiers, assembled a great squad heading into this season.

Hewitt, Seager, Gordon, Starling, all quality. Let's throw in Brien, Siejka, Mortimer and a let's see what Cowra boy Shannon Boyd is up to after retiring?

It's a more than handy group.

Western was lapped by a Maitland side led by former Knights half Brock Lamb two weeks ago - I wonder how the Pickers would have fared against a Panthers side drawing on Group 10's best players?

On top of a more competitive team, the Cup would have boasted a terrific rivalry. With Panthers, the best side in Group 10 over the last two season, and Dubbo CYMS both in the Cup that Group 10 against Group 11 facet of Rams rugby league would be alive in 2020, too - which would have given footy fans in the west something to look forward to, especially given COVID-19 forced the abandonment of both premiership races.

The NSWRL Facebook page has been streaming these games, as well. A Rams derby beamed on to social media feeds across NSW and the country would have been a great endorsement for rugby league in Western.

The key to the growth of Group 10 and Group 11 in the last few years has been both competitions' youth mixed in with experience.

That youth has been on show for the Rams' Cup side in 2020, but the balance has been amiss thanks to the absence of experience.

News of Willie Heta's and Zac Merrit's inclusion in this weekend's side to take on North Sydney is welcome.

The pair will likely give us all a taste of what could have been if this Rams side was able to boast some of this region's best players on a more regular basis.

The conditions on Saturday in Orange were as bad as I've seen them. It was woeful. Atrocious.

While rugby games carried on across all grades, nearly everything else was cancelled. Except for Australian rules. Well, to clarify, some AFL Central West games.

It's a winter sport, and signing up to winter sports in Orange means your a high chance to run out in snow at some point. It's part of the deal.

Saturday's cancellations would have been fine... if it hadn't forced the Tigers and Dubbo women's sides on the field anyway.

On Friday night, the AFL Central West made the call from Sydney games should go ahead. Nothing changed at first light on Saturday, despite snow and ice across Orange and roads shut.

Only at 11am, half an hour before the women were due to go on, the call came through: the rest of the games were cancelled. Just not the one due to start in minutes.

The situation where the league is making the call at 11am for one set of games and leaving another out in the cold - literally - is ridiculous.

The decision smacked of leaving the women's competition as an afterthought. Surely, in 2020, under the umbrella of an organisation as big as the AFL, decisions can't be made which leave the women's competition out of the loop.

And yet, here we are, where conditions were deemed too dangerous for the men to run around, but for the girls?

"Nah, she'll be right," they may well have said.

If it's not right for the boys, you can't say it's right for the girls.