NNSWF held a Zoom meeting with representatives from Northern NSW NPL, Herald Women's Premier League and Northern League One clubs on Tuesday night to discuss a potential return from the suspension of football brought on by the statewide COVID-19 lockdown.

A third weekend of play will be lost after the NSW government announced on Thursday that the lockdown will extend to at least Saturday, August 28. It effectively means a fourth weekend will be lost, after clubs and NNSWF determined at the meeting that teams would need a week of training before competition resumed.

NNSWF operations manager Liam Bentley said clubs also committed to completing the regular season and finals if the lockdown ended in about the next month. An extension of the lockdown beyond that would require more discussions.

"I guess the meeting was to put principles across about where we see things at the moment," Bentley said.

"It wasn't so much trying to have a set-in-stone plan about anything because things are changing week to week.

"But we committed to a couple of things. We committed that when it's possible and safe to do so, we are going to try to finish our entire season, home-and-away and the finals.

"If things get delayed another four or five weeks, then we need to get everyone back in the room again and have a discussion because you are talking about a very, very late end to the season.

"One of the other things we let the clubs know is now that it's been three weeks, we'll make sure everyone gets the chance to have some training and a run around before we put matches back on.

"There are some key matches to played to decide premierships and finals places and we don't want teams going into them having not run around and kicked a ball for three or four weeks.

"I think everyone was accepting that a week was a reasonable time to get everyone back on the park. We wouldn't want to push that too long and end up in another lockdown five or six weeks later and not be able to finish the season."

Unlike other football codes locally, the NNSWF competitions use mostly non-cricket grounds and are therefore able to extend their seasons well into spring and past the start of summer sports.

Last year, the NPL grand finals were held on November 8, two months later than usual, because of the COVID-delayed start to the season.

Bentley said those deciders could have been pushed back even further and there was no reason to put a potential end date on this season.

He said the vast majority of clubs were "really keen to kick on" and finish the season but one in particular expressed their reservations.

"They have a fair bit of time and effort invested into this season and the vast majority don't want to give that up just yet," he said.

"But there were obviously concerns people put across about coming back, general concerns around COVID and having people around if we haven't reached the right vaccination rates.

"But the vast majority agree with us that when the government health advice says that it is safe to go out again and participate in football again, then we'll do our best to do that.

"If people just don't want to play, we won't look too kindly on that, but if there's good reasons, like not having enough players available or volunteers to run games because of health concerns, then that's a different matter."

The NPL is the closest to completion, with only two rounds remaining.

"I think the feeling at the moment is there's hope that if we get out of lockdown in the next few weeks, that they would like to have everything done," he said. "We don't want to end the premiership with two rounds to go and we don't want to miss out on finals. Right now, it is let's try and get everything done."

He said efforts would also be made to finish youth leagues, although issues may arise because of potential travel restrictions on participating clubs outside the Hunter.

IN THE NEWS

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: