The third time the tournament, which was scheduled to be played in Tamworth this weekend (March 23 and 24), has been called off; this time it is for good.

"I'm done," Fitzgerald, who was the tournament organiser, told the Leader.

"I'm not going to try and run it again, because I can't do another year of this is what we're doing and have it all fall apart at the last minute."

Generally a quite jovial character, his voice dripped with disappointment.

"I'm pretty crushed actually," he said.

"I had my head in the sand for a week or so."

"It's four years down the gurgler."

Billed as the biggest women's rugby tournament, certainly in the country and possibly the southern hemisphere, and intended to provide a platform to showcase women's rugby and really bring it to the "forefront", the event was initially scheduled to be held in April 2022.

But it had to be postponed after the Country Music Festival was pushed back to then.

Then last year it was set to be held over Easter but was postponed a couple of weeks out after failing to attract enough teams to make it feasible to go ahead.

"It's disappointing," Fitzgerald said at the time.

"But unless we can make it as as big and as successful as we want, it's not worth holding."

Following that they surveyed the teams that had expressed interest about when would be the preferred time to run it, and settled on this weekend.

Addressing the media on February 14, Fitzgerald said if the tournament had to run this year with limited numbers it would, in the hope that it would be a starting point to grow.

At that stage there was still around two weeks until nominations closed, and he probably envisioned picking up a few last minute entries.

But that didn't eventuate.

"It's disappointing. But if you can't get the support you can't hold these events," he said.

He was at a loss as to why they didn't get the interest.

"We've had huge reach. Our email and our Facebook statistics are enormous," he said.

They even had teams from "as far as New Zealand" get in touch.

But "nothing was ever followed up".

Receiving a $100,000 grant through the Regional Events Acceleration Fund to assist with staging the event, Fitzgerald is awaiting a response from the state government about the process for returning that.

"Obviously some deposits and stuff have been paid.

"[But] They know that. They knew it last time when we moved it from last year to this year," he said.

Tamworth Regional Council had also lent their support through 'in kind' contributions.

Fitzgerald said they, and everyone "that had any input" into the event have been "nothing but helpful" in the wake of the cancellation.