Newcastle league officials will investigate putting the grandfinal back a week and running a condensed 14 round competition starting in late May with a four-team semifinal series following the decision by the NSWRL to suspend grassroots footy throughout NSW in response to the coronavirus crisis.
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After a series of meetings on Tueday, the NSWRL are set to officially announce they are suspending all competitions from juniors right through to senior rugby league, including the NSW Cup competition, until possibly as late as the end of May or into early June.
The Newcastle league board will meet on Wednesday night to discuss the ramifications of the NSWRL decision with CEO Matt Harris saying all viable options will be on the table once they are officially told how long competitions will be suspended.
"We'll obviously abide by what the NSWRL tells us and try and formulate a plan from there," Harris told the Newcastle Herald.
The local premiership, due to be played over 16 rounds, wasn't set to start until April 18 with the grandfinal slated for September 20.
One option being strongly considered is moving the grandfinal back a week to September 27 and playing the competition over 14 rounds starting in late May with each team playing each other twice. The play-offs would become a four-team finals series rather than the usual five.
There would be no spare weekends and no representative footy played.
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