While the junior competitions went off without a hitch on Saturday morning, premier league softball to be played that afternoon was called off due to heat. It's been a season start with several disruptions, wet weather washouts, game deferments and now high heat suspensions. Despite the stop and go, Wagga Softball Association secretary Kylie Sarantakos said the softball community understands player safety comes first. "We've had both ends, two weeks ago we cancelled because of the storms and this week we cancelled because of the heat, but we've actually been able to make up most of those games," Sarantakos said. "We've actually had a couple of games deferred because players are unavailable and they've played mid-week games, so that's been really helpful so obviously player flexibility has been great. "The premier league is a bit tricky because we've got our Albury team but they have been so adaptable and understanding. "They're actually going to come up next weekend and play a double header which is great, we'll have three premier games that are played next weekend on that afternoon, so we're really looking forward to that." While Saturday's premier league games weren't called off until afternoon, many associations, particularly those in Sydney, cancelled their games on Friday. Communication from Softball NSW late last week left the decision in the hands of local associations as to if games would run. Sarantakos said Wagga decided to hold off as weather predictions weren't as extreme locally as for other parts of the state. But the decision to play or not play doesn't come from thin air, she said. "I think maybe some of our more senior players were silently relieved they didn't have to run around in the heat," she said. "We have a player matrix or a weather matrix and we look at the conditions, we look at the player abilities, the player ages, all of those sorts of things come into account and you get a score which then determines how you're going to make the call for the rest of the day. "So when we got to the 37 degrees, we went 'we're at that limit'. "In every sport, you're always going to have people say, why did they call it off, we've played in it before, and that is true, we have probably played in it but also, we look at things like player condition, which is have we had 35 degrees for the last three weeks, are players conditioned to that weather at the moment, and they haven't been because we really haven't had much of this hot weather. "Making sure that players are safe is the main priority and you're always going to have people say, oh I would have still played but not everyone can and we had to be mindful of that and look after people's health." Next Saturday's games marks the final round for 2023 before the season returns in February. Sarantakos said their Christmas round is always one of the biggest and best of the year, with plenty of support. Players and spectators are being encouraged to spread some Christmas cheer and bring down reading and activity books for donation to local charities.