Hanwood Football Club ready to play by mid-July, Yenda Blueheelers pull pin on seniors

From July 1, senior and junior sports will be able to return to competitive games across NSW - however there are still restrictions in place to reduce the risk of COVID-19 spreading.

Hanwood FC coach Anthony Agresta said players would be meeting on Thursday to talk about what those rules would look like when training begins next week.

"We'll kick off next Tuesday, we're getting everything in order before we start," Mr Agresta said.

Some players have been keen to get back and Mr Agresta said the Thursday meeting would be about working out how training with nine people would work.

"We have to brief the boys with how it's going to work, so at least when they turn up on Tuesday, they know what the go is," Mr Agresta said.

In their first year back in the competition in 2019, Hanwood FC won the Pascoe Cup.

Mr Agresta said the full details of what any competition organised would look like were still being worked out by Football Wagga.

"They're still looking at mid-July for kick off," he said.

"I doubt it will be brought forward, up until now it was all speculation."

The new rules may mean Hanwood plays without a crowd, but Mr Agresta said that wasn't a worry for the club.

"We don't rely on gate takings, so from that point of view it doesn't affect us," he said.

"It's a different situation this year, and we've got to work with it.

"Back when all this started, it didn't look like there was much of a season at all with everything that's been going on, so it's a good thing.

"We don't want to rush, we want to make sure we're doing things right."

Group 20's clubs are still to decide what happens to the season, but it appears that Yenda's first graders will be sitting out.

Blueheelers president Sam Panarello said had made their own decision not to play, but would instead urge a 16s and 18s competition instead.

"Most of our players come from the larger employers, and we have to be very careful and keep their health, and everyone else's health in mind," Mr Panarello said.

Mr Panarello was hopeful new cases of COVID-19 wouldn't be discovered, the risk of transmission in the community was too high.

"It's great to see the NRL, it suggests that everything is okay, and maybe it is. But the NRL is spending millions to make sure there's no risk of infections," he said.

"We're very conscious that without community support, we don't survive. All our sponsors have taken a hit.

"We don't know how quick we're going to bounce back, and we want to give our supporters a chance to recover so we can play again.

"We're better having one year off than putting ourselves under a strain that we can't recover from or spreading the virus."

He said the protocols that the club has to comply with were also considerable for a smaller club.

Players would have to turn up at the grounds ready to play, play the game and then head home to shower as amenities at the ovals aren't to be used.

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Mr Panarello said rugby league was about more than the game, it was a shared passion and created connections between players, officials, clubs and supporters.

It's why Mr Panarello said the Yenda club would propose a juniors competition.

Not only is there a better financial proposition for smaller clubs that don't have to pay players, but it would give younger players the chance to develop their skills and become future first grade players.

"Our coaches have asked players at that level and 90 per cent of them want to play," he said.

"There's still a lot of hurdles to clear, and we'll take the proposal to the Group 20 meeting."

Meanwhile, Griffith Swans Netball Club got back to training this week.

The club's grades have training sessions across the week as they work the cobwebs out.

"We started training on Tuesday," president Sarah McCluskey said.

"It's shown up everyone's fitness, or lack there of. But it's been good to get out there and have run."

While maintaining fitness has been good, Miss McCluskey said the everyone had missed the social aspect of training and playing.

"That's what everyone's missed the most, spending time with friends," she said.

"We're pretty excited just to get back into it. We were just ramping up just as COVID began."

Miss McCluskey said the Swans were waiting for a final decision to be made about the Riverina and Farrer league competitions on June 30.