Wet weather again set to wreak havoc on Coastal Premier League Men's fixtures

More than 100mm of rain fell in the Hastings region last weekend, rendering most playing fields unplayable this week.

Saints were scheduled to play ladder-leaders Coffs City United at Findlay Park on Saturday, but the decision was made on Friday morning (May 27) to postpone the Coastal Premier League Men's fixture due to a wet pitch.

Coach Oliver King had all-but ruled the match out on Wednesday anyway.

"There won't be a game, no chance," King said.

"Our pitch is a puddle as we speak and there's more rain on the way."

The possibility of transferring the match to Coffs Harbour was also ruled out after the synthetic pitch up there had already been booked.

Saints could struggle to find times to play the rest of their catch-up matches should the rain continue with matches already postponed against Boambee, Port United and Coffs Coast.

The United and Tigers fixtures are at home, while they still need to travel to Boambee.

"This weekend is the fourth (postponement) so it just adds up on the pile of things to do, but there's no real easy option unless we play every weekend in Coffs and we just don't have the capacity to do that," King said.

"We've got two games locally, but then we have to travel an hour or more every time whereas Coffs have got five teams within a 20-minute circle which is a little bit different."

Lions coach Glenn Williams expressed the frustrations felt by most community sporting clubs up and down the east coast of New South Wales.

"It's disappointing, but everyone's doing the best they can including the administrators of all football, not just CPL," he said.

"Some of those junior community football teams have only played one game all season and between COVID and wet weather it's been a tricky three years."

Coffs City have dodged the rain largely due to playing five out of their six matches to date on the synthetic pitches at the C.Ex Stadium.

"We've had a good start which has been promising because we haven't had the same team on the park two weeks in a row just through COVID, injuries and having people away."

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