The annual tri-school tournament was pushed back from its regular term three timeslot because of COVID-19 but will still go ahead this year, with Dubbo to host Orange High in the first leg on August 27 and 28.

The raucous crowds synonymous with the competition won't be allowed this year and strict rules are likely at every venue but Dubbo College remains as motivated as ever to end its cup drought.

"We've won it six times in 34 years so any win is always special," Dubbo College's cup coordinator Craig May said.

"The other schools are very strong but if we were to win this year it would be very special. It's a hard thing to win."

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May and his counterparts at Orange and Bathurst have been hard at work in recent months to ensure the competition, which started in 1923, would go ahead this year.

The work continues and May admitted it's a day-to-day process with one eye constantly on the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in NSW.

One of the major decisions made this year will be to live stream events so all students and community members can still be a part of the action.

"We'd love it to be movie quality streams," May laughed.

"We'll see how it goes and work on it. The netball and basketball here will work well but we'll work on how we can do some of the events that are a little further away.

"But we'll do all we can to give people access to it because people look forward to this every year."

Despite all the disruption, there is still plenty of excitement within the Dubbo sides.

The majority of squads have been finalised in the past week, with many having had the chance to prepare for the meeting with Orange by taking part in the recent Ken Eggleton Cup event against St John's College.

May admitted the Astley Cup is a different beast and while Bathurst heads into this year's event as the three-time champions and Orange has maintained much of the athletes from last year, he remains upbeat.

"We're in a good spot and will be competitive again," he said.

"We've got a lot of kids who will be competitive and have got some really big ins.

"Kate Duffy has been in Bathurst for years for soccer but is now back at Dubbo College and Brooke Pilcher was in Orange and played in their hockey team but she's back now, too."

"Orange will be really competitive and I've heard they've only lost about a dozen from last year.

"Bathurst has never won four in a row and this is their best chance so there's some big obstacles for us to jump over."

Pending any changes, Dubbo will host Orange on August 27 and 28 before travelling to Bathurst for events on September 2 and 3.

The clash between Orange and Bathurst on September 7 and 8 will bring the curtain down on this year's event.