WITH a start date for the Mid-West Cup still unknown due to coronavirus restrictions, the competition's president Dallas Booth believes the clubs are in a good position to see out the disruption.
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Only four teams - CSU Mungoes, Lithgow Bears, Portland Colts and Orange Barbarians - competed last year, but there's been a boom in popularity in Group 10's second division competition for 2020.
Blackheath Blackcats and Kandos Waratahs have been resurrected, Oberon Tigers have dropped from Group 10 premier league and newly-formed Orange United have entered the rejuvenated competition.
While Group 10 clubs are counting the cost of the lack of footy, Booth believes the Mid-West Cup clubs won't be as financially affected.
"Player payments are a minimum in this comp and your spendings are much smaller than every Group 10 club, who buy players, have four teams to buy jerseys for and find sponsors for," he said.
While he doesn't know of every club's situation, Booth believes not many players would be paid to play in the competition.
"I can't speak for every club, but I know for a fact that no players are getting paid at Oberon," he said.
"Last year when I was at Portland, no players were getting paid there. I can't speak for them this year, but they weren't last year.
"I'm fairly certain none of the CSU players are getting paid too, because they don't even charge you to get through the gate. They're just there to play footy.
"My assumption would be not many [players are getting paid]. I don't know that for certain. Obviously we don't get to see all the clubs' books.
"There's probably a couple of coaches out there that are getting paid to coach, though, which is completely fair enough."
The Mid-West Cup was originally meant to kick off the weekend after Easter - April 18-19.
Booth is hopeful the club sponsors will stick around and show their support during the difficult times.
"A lot of the sponsors are purely sponsoring to help the clubs out and support their local team," he said.
"Whether or not that means sponsorship will be cut back for this year if there's a shorter comp or it's cancelled completely, I'm not sure. That would be up to each individual club.
"A shorter comp means their [a sponsor's] name won't get out as much during the year, but in saying that, from what I've found, most sponsors in the Mid-West Cup are looking to help a local team out and do it for that reason, not for the financial gain."
While it might be difficult times for the players, Booth understands the suspension of the competition is for the best.
"As much as we love our footy and as much as we hope we'll get to a point when the comp can kick off, there's bigger things in the world to worry about than sport at the moment," he said.
"Obviously, people's safety is the number one priority and that means we can't have the season until it's safe to do so."
