The remaining day of rescheduled Astley Cup action between Bathurst and Orange High Schools was set to take place on Tuesday but new coronavirus safety measures introduced by the state government has put those plans on hold.

The opening day's play between the two schools was originally called off when new public health guidelines prevented school travel outside of local government areas.

The entire 2020 Astley Cup was called off due to COVID-19, after the competition still wasn't able to go ahead when pushed back to a later date in the year.

Now it's threatening to do the same to this year's edition.

Orange High Astley Cup co-ordinator Tegan Dray said: "We don't have a date set just yet as it all happened quite quickly. We're just working through that health advice and waiting until it's all fine until we proceed.

"It's the advice from the Department of Education that we can't travel outside our Local Government Areas, so we can't travel from Orange to Bathurst."

New dates will now have to be found for the remaining four sports to be held in Bathurst: Tennis, girls hockey, boys rugby league and athletics.

Bathurst High School Astley Cup co-ordinator Lachlan Blaikie said it's disappointing to see things come undone at the last minute.

"Last Friday I was finalising everything to get it all back on the road, booking buses and communicating details with Orange, but then the update came out at 11am and we've had to change that plan," he said.

"We've had to put it on the backburner again. Not being able to travel between local government areas means that we won't be doing anything until that restriction is eased.

"It obviously comes down to the government and what they stipulate. We don't have any room to move. We'll have to wait and see what happens and then look to negotiate another date that works for both Orange and us."

Whatever the new date may be, Blaikie said both schools would prefer to see all sports completed on the same day.

"All four of them are outdoor events so we thought that it would be manageable but not being able to travel ended that idea," he said.

"When we are able to travel we'd prefer to try and find a date where we can have everything on the same day again.

"We could split the sports up, if something forced that, but I can't see us wanting to add too many disruptions with HSC trials coming up. We'd love to get it played but we don't want it impacting the learning of our kids.

"Last year a similar thing was on the cards when we had to keep postponing. Once the year 12s leave for the last break before HSC then in reality we wouldn't be able to play it."

Bathurst carries a 110-point advantage over Orange halfway through their tie but the remaining sports are expected to favour the visiting squad.

Victory in the tie would seal the cup for Orange while Bathurst would need to win the tie by more than 156 points in order to claim a fourth straight Astley Cup.

Dubbo claimed victory in their tie against Bathurst during last school term while Orange proved too good for Dubbo in their meeting.

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