IT was a season which was set to feature a historic first in the fierce rivalry between Parkes Spacemen and Forbes Magpies but a new Western Under 21s draw forced by the withdrawal of five clubs means it won't happen.
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On the back of a successful inaugural edition of the competition in 2021 which saw a six-team battle and St Pat's crowned as champions, this year the under 21s attracted interest from a wider number of clubs in the Western region.
Parkes and Forbes were two of the newcomers as the number of participating clubs expanded from six to 11.
But with just over a week before the competition was due to kick-off, NSW Rugby League's league and club support co-ordinator Dallas Reeves was forced to come up with a new draw as five clubs who intended to participate conceded they would not be able to.
"Mudgee let us know first, then Coonamble and Forbes pulled out at the meeting Monday night. Then we had Orange CYMS pull out Tuesday night and Dubbo Macquarie on Wednesday," Reeves said.
"It was really a matter of numbers, it was a really early start and they'd all been to training, but they just weren't getting the players there that they needed to play.
"It is a disappointment, but it's still the same amount of teams we had last year. It is understandable, yeah it is disappointing, but all the teams had valid reasons for withdrawing.
"But there are still six teams who want to play, so we are pretty keen to make it as a good a tournament for them as we can," said Reeves.
For Spacemen president Tony Dwyer, the club was really pleased they could be involved in the competition, and knows how crucial this competition could be locally.
"We ended up picking three boys from Nyngan and two from Manildra and they were good pick-ups (after the withdrawals), so that's a positive I guess," said Dywer.
"It's a whole new thing for us, so it will be interesting to see how it goes.
"For us, the 21s is a way of keeping the young blokes interested and staying involved in the club instead of playing for Trundle, Manildra or what have you.
"We get the eyes picked out of us given how central we are to so many teams, so we have to stay involved.
"We're also prepared to play four games when we go away which not all clubs can," said Dwyer.
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With the withdrawal of the five sides, it leaves defending champions St Pat's, 2021 runners-up Dubbo CYMS, Orange Hawks, Bathurst Panthers, Parkes Spacemen and Cowra Magpies as those who will compete.
Reeves has been forced to ditch plans to run the competition with western, eastern and northern pools. Instead a random draw which includes all remaining clubs has been done for a three-week period.
"They could well meet further down the track in the finals though, so we'll see what happens," Reeves said.
Naturally there the prospect of the round one Dubbo derby and round three Orange showdown between Hawks and CYMS are gone, as well as the clash of the swoopers when the Cowra and Forbes Magpies were to meet.
However, the kick-off date for the competition remains for this weekend.
Each team will play three games, which will decide their rankings for the finals.
The top three will do battle for the cup, the bottom three still get a chance to win the plate.
After those three rounds, Reeves said they will "see where other football commitments lie and play the two sets of finals within the first three weeks of March."
"So it will run over five weekends, it's just that we've left the two sets of finals weekends to be confirmed. Probably the chief commitment we'll have to base the finals around for all Group 10 teams is the when the Bathurst Knockout gets played," he said.
"We worked it out so every team will get a minimum of four games across those five weeks that we play.
"Every team will either qualify for the cup or the plate. The first ranked team will go through to the cup grand final and the fourth ranked team will go straight through to the plate grand final
"We tried to be fair, no draw is perfect, we've tried to balance things out to be as equitable as we can."
Reeves said the plan is to offer the remaining clubs the opportunity to work within the parameters of the new draw to help them best promote the Western under 21s competition.
"We are going to be pretty flexible with what the clubs want, the first round of the draw at the moment has one game on the Saturday and two on the Sunday morning, but we'll let clubs come back to us and make arrangements around that," he said.
"We'll let them do what works out best in consultation with the visiting clubs.
"But what I can say in the draw the plan is to have a double-header each weekend. There'll be one in Cowra, one in Bathurst which St Pat's will host and one in Parkes."
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