The rugby league club will meet next week to talk about options, but according to coach Shane Rampling, there were “not many”.

“Lose your major sponsor of $65,000 and you’re up in a bit of trouble,” he said.

“We’ll be talking about the best option going forward – whether that be disbanding West Lions as a club altogether and starting afresh later.”

Club president Mick Hine was more positive, however.

“We’ll have to work that out on Wednesday night,” he said when asked what options the club would explore.

“The vibes at the moment are pretty positive, but we’ll know more when we have that meeting.”

Mr Hine said he conceded it would be hard to find another sponsorship to the value of WEG’s, which might mean asking for players and coaches to shoulder some of the burden.

That could mean players forgoing match fees or buying their own kit, for example.

“Wherever you get other sponsorship, you won’t get that sort of money.”

There were many variables to be considered, he said.

“If the players want to go on, if we have the numbers – if we haven't got the numbers, there’ll be no more games, mate,” Mr Hine said.

West Lions has also had serious blows to its line-up, with the Nean brothers – widely regarded as two of the team’s best players – sidelined for up to 20 years so far in the judiciary hearings stemming from grand final day on September 11.

The Group 4 judiciary last week banned Matt Nean from playing for 20 years for a shoulder charge on a referee. In a second round of hearings on Thursday night, Sean Nean received a 10-year suspension for misconduct.

Mr Hine said they would be “hard to replace” but there were other strong players in Chris Hunt, Phil Beaton, Dylan Lake and Sam Taylor, among others.

“What happened is a big deal - losing your main sponsorship - but you gotta stay positive,” he said.