Gunnedah's players were good to go if Group 4 had decided to progress with the 2020 season, Bulldogs leader Reece Jaeger has said.
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Jaeger said he and another senior Bulldog and fellow Gunnedah committee member, Aaron Donnelly, requested the club ask Group 4 to "hold off" on cancelling the season given the July 1 resumption of senior sport in NSW.
"Who knows what could have happened in that month or two," he said.
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Group 4 chairman Ray McCoy said Gunnedah, North Tamworth and Moree wanted to play this year.
But Jaeger - a former Sydney Roosters under-20 player, a longstanding first-grade player in Illawarra and Gunnedah's 2019 skipper - understands why the season was abandoned.
He said: "I think as players we wanted the season to go ahead, and there were questions asked to why it wasn't [going ahead], etc. But once you sit back and have a look at it, it's nothing anyone's ever seen before."
Jaeger said when everything was taken into consideration, "it's probably not viable to keep the season going".
He said "a few players" were part of Gunnedah's committee this year. "So, we've kind of got that insight into what happens behind the scenes - not only costs involved, but everything else that goes with it.
"But I think it all came down to the simple fact: if we couldn't have normal-size crowds, with the canteen [open] ... and then pubs with sponsorship and all that kind of stuff, it kind of just made it too hard."
Jaeger saw the writing on the wall for Group 4 when other rugby league competitions were cancelled, including Newcastle and Illawarra .
"Once you see those comps go, you're kind of waiting for ours to get cancelled."
North Tamworth wants to play in another competition this year, but Jaeger does not believe the Bulldogs could do that given the players' work commitments and the travel that would be involved.
"It definitely hasn't been discussed, I know that," he said.
