Football Wagga made the decision to invite Hanwood into the competition at a meeting on Wednesday night, a development that came as a shock to the Griffith club.

Hanwood have been trying to enter the Wagga competition for a number of years but had their most recent attempt knocked back by clubs two years ago.

The decision from the Football Wagga board on Wednesday came about due to a couple of reasons, but most notably Junee's request to withdraw from the Pascoe Cup competition.

Football Wagga approved Junee's request and decided to issue an invite to Hanwood in a bid to keep the Pascoe Cup a 10 team competition.

Football Wagga president Tony Dobbin wrote to clubs on Thursday informing them of the board's invite to Hanwood.

"FWW has had a number of internal discussions on this, both in the past when first approached and more recently as events have unfolded," Dobbin wrote.

"We have considered all the benefits and disbenefits that we could think of in issuing an invitation including those that have been raised in the past and those raised more recently.

"We also formally consulted with clubs through discussions at (the) recent Council of Clubs meeting.

"To us the benefits include bringing in a club with a long history and stability, strong competitiveness, a strong financial basis, the addition of three senior mens and two senior womens teams into the competition, potentially providing more players into the Wanderers stream, good fields in Griffith and demonstration that the proposed regional sporting complex is indeed regional.

"We accept that there are a number of potential disbenefits in issuing an invitation but believe that are just potential and can be managed...On balance FWW believes it to be in the best interests of our competition to issue an Invitation to Hanwood and we have now done this."

The invite caught Hanwood off guard, just over two weeks out from the start of the competition.

Hanwood officials did not want to comment on Thursday and plan to meet to discuss the development before issuing a statement.

Junee's withdrawal from the Pascoe Cup competition only occurred a week ago after they sought permission from Football Wagga.

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