First the league was forced to start late due to NSW COVID lockdown rules, then a period of wet weather saw Molong flood, which left cricket fields unplayable.

"There are two grounds out in Molong and the turf field was underwater, as was half the town and the second oval which is adjacent to the creek as well, it was underwater as well," Pringle said.

"The council indicated to me it would take at least two weeks to clean up the fields with all the debris, to have them in a condition where you could dive and run around chasing a cricket ball. We adjusted the draw so we could play matches at grounds of other clubs instead of the Molong ones."

Little did the association's president know, the worst was yet to come.

Just as they were preparing to get the competition back underway, Molong was hit with a COVID outbreak that has seen the town record nearly 60 cases in a matter of weeks.

Although Pringle said that no players within the association tested positive, he did add that some children of players had recorded a positive result which meant all those in the household had to self-isolate.

"We had an executive meeting to contemplate what to do. We had two issues, we had the flooding and then the COVID, so we decided to suspend the competition for a week (December 4 match) to see what would happen," he said.

"Then we would address each week as it arose to see if we could play or not, because we couldn't run a competition with two Molong teams out."

The hope was they would return to normal operations for the round on December 11, but that wasn't so.

"We made a decision to resume it in the middle of last week and the very next day there was another spike in cases in Molong," Pringle added.

"Then I got a phone call from Cudal and Millthorpe. Mostly Millthorpe, the players and their families were concerned about playing against Molong players who may have been exposed to the virus and then bringing it to their towns, which we thought were fairly legitimate concerns even though we were of the opinion that cricket is an outdoor venue and you can't play in our competition unless you're double-vaxxed."

As well as Cudal and Millthorpe, the competition fields two Molong teams and sides from Canowindra and Lyndhurst.

So with all that in mind, the committee made the tough call to suspend the season until past the Christmas break. This has meant that teams will have played a maximum of three of the possible seven games, while Pringle's Molong Magpies have taken to the field just twice in nearly two months.

"We have tried to address it the best we can, but it's in the lap of the gods," Pringle said.

"If we have a wet summer then it will be a disastrous season and I've never seen anything like it since I've been playing. It's pretty much just been the season from hell.

"We've got fingers crossed that after the Christmas break we can resume, but we've extended our season to mid-April where we normally finish mid-March."

The aim is for the competition to resume on January 15. Molong's Hartas Cup game against the Blue Mountains was also deferred to 2022.

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