A hint of sunshine this week has given Football FNC clubs renewed optimism that a number of catch up games may be able to be played in the coming week or two.

With the King's Birthday Long Weekend a normally quite time in sporting circles, one Premier League Men's match between Maclean and Alstonville will be played on Saturday at 3:00pm and a large number of midweek matches across all divisions will be played next week.

Richmond Rovers will host Bangalow on Tuesday night at 8:00pm and South Lismore will travel to Mullumbimby on Wednesday evening for another Men's Premier League clash.

It has been difficult times for organisers, with Football Far North Coast issuing a statement to clubs to keep them updated with the ever changing season.

"Good afternoon,

I write to provide various information and commentary in an effort to provide some clarification about the way forward after an exceptionally disrupted season thus far.

A majority of teams have been barely able to start the season, with multiple senior teams having played only two or three of the seven fixtures that should have ordinarily been completed as at last weekend. Beyond this, the disparity of how many games various teams have completed within each competition, has created a further challenge, to ensure that every team in each competition ultimately plays the same number of games this year. Across 13 senior leagues and 15 junior competitions, this is not a simple objective to achieve.

The clock is ticking and as outlined in the attachment, the FFNC decision to proceed with a modified finals series, provides more scope to schedule more pointscore fixtures, however, there are now only nine (9) playing weekends left to schedule pointscore fixtures for junior teams and up to thirteen (13) playing weekends to schedule pointscore fixtures for senior leagues.

FFNC is aiming to deliver as many games relative to each competition, but the disclosure is made today, that this could necessarily be limited to about ten (10) pointscore games for each junior team this year and about fourteen (14) games for each senior team. Every effort will be made to maximise the number of matches played, but there needs to be equity within each competition, based on the number of games played by each team in the same competition. Note that the number of fixtures to be scheduled will vary for each competition, so please be clear that there is no precise number of fixtures to be delivered for every team, whether junior or senior, meaning that one competition could see 'x' number of games played and another 'y' number of games.

FFNC received 'unofficial news' yesterday, that Lismore City Council has approved an Indigenous Rugby league tournament to be played at Oakes Oval and Crozier Field on the weekend of 19/20/21 September and further, that the Masters Games will proceed on the weekend of 26/27/28 September. This news is another obstacle, as we need three (3) weekends to host every grand final at a central venue and FFNC is committed to seeing grand finals again played at Oakes Oval (or Crozier Field), in Lismore. As outlined in the attachment, the FFNC grand final weekends commence 5/6/7 September and continues 12/13/14 and concludes on 19/20/21 September* (*) Clashing with the dates for the Indigenous Rugby League event and one week before the proposed scheduling of the Masters Games.

Work is now advanced with constructing the draw for each competition for the balance of season 2025. This task is even more complex than creating the draws at the start of each season, when no team has played. Tim will aim to publish a schedule beyond the fixtures that have been published until early July, but I am unable to predict the timeline around when a further batch of fixtures will be published. 

I highlight that there will be fixtures scheduled to be played variously mid-week and others requiring teams to play more than one match on a given weekend. This might seem contrary to the fact that some teams will not play every weekend, as a consequence of those teams having already played many more games than other teams in the same competition. The 'critical commentary' received from several stakeholders recently when FFNC published various re-scheduled fixtures, prompts me to urge club delegates to temper those expectations that seemingly fail to recognise that FFNC cannot influence weather or field conditions, yet the same views that are quick to question why FFNC is not scheduling every fixture?

Season 2025 will hopefully now see favourable conditions, from this point forward and while a normal football season is no longer possible, I join with everyone who is desperately hoping that the participation experience moving forward is a positive one."