Dubbo College's Co-ordinator of sport Craig May says there's 'a lot of disappointment' being felt in the aftermath of the decision by the Astley Cup's three schools to cancel the competition, but says there was no other choice.
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A decision was reached early on Tuesday morning, with all three school's agreeing not to host the competition this year after the NSW state government issued further restrictions on school sport.
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"At the end of the day, we're guided by people in higher authorities, they make those judgements based on what's best for our students and our staff," May said.
"There's a lot of disappointment there for everyone, and it's absolutely a blow, but the decision's been made."
The decision comes as a particular blow as the three schools had already been forced to postpone the contest from it's usual time, and had gone to every length possible to ensure it would be held, and viewable, this year.
"Everything was ready to go, we'd done all the the things we had to do, but the government had to make the decision they made," May said.
"Everyone all over the schools did everything possible they could to make sure it went ahead, when we moved it to term three, we had long meetings where we thrashed ideas back and forth, but unfortunately it's not meant to be."
As a result, the next iteration of the contest won't be held until term two of 2021's school year at the earlier, with May, the administrations and the student body adopting a forward looking approach to next year's competition.
"We want to make sure we give the best shot to the competition going ahead in 2021, and look on the positive side, now we get to redirect everything back into next year and showcasing our communities and ensuring everyone can be involved," May said.
"It's a great competition to have everyone involved in and it's going to great to do that."
May thanked everyone involved for their patience and hard work, and gave specific praise to the student cohort's older students, who will miss out on the competition this year.
"I take my hat off to those kids in year 12, they've been dealt some really big body blows and the finish line still isn't there for them, unfortunately," May said.
"They're having to get to the end of year 12 in this situation, but they are resilient, it might not be such a good spot, but they're moving forward and they'll move on."
Next years edition of the Astley Cup will be the 99th event in it's history, with the 98th becoming only the fourth event to be cancelled.
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