RIVERINA sporting competitions have been thrown into chaos by the sudden lockdown of Canberra.
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The Australian Capital Territory (ACT) went into a snap seven-day lockdown at 5pm on Thursday after Canberra recorded its first COVID-19 case in 12 months.
To make matters worse, the ACT Government later classified the entire NSW as COVID-affected area
The developments were felt throughout the Riverina, which has a strong sporting connection with the nation's capital.
A number of travelling players will be unable to play on the weekend, and potential longer, while some games will no longer go ahead.
Wagga City Wanderers play in Capital Football's NPL Two competition and were due to play Weston Molonglo in Canberra on Saturday.
That game will no longer be played as scheduled after Capital Football suspended all football activity, while the ACT Government's classification of NSW now puts their place in the competition in doubt, at least in the short-term future.
In AFL Riverina, more than 20 footballers travel from Canberra each week to play across the Riverina and Farrer League competitions.
AFL NSW-ACT community football regional manager Marc Geppert confirmed Canberra-based footballers were ruled out of this weekend's round.
"Following the ACT Government announcement at 12 o'clock today, all clubs were notified or reminded of the latest restrictions in regards to ACT participants. Accordingly, the impacted players that play in our AFL Riverina competitions will be unable to participate this weekend," Geppert said.
"We'll obviously continue to monitor the situation in Canberra and hopefully those guys don't see any more cases in their community and they can go back to playing in our competitions next weekend provided it's safe to do so."
The lockdown is of particular concern to Mangoplah-Cookardinia United-Eastlakes, whose quest to break the league's longest premiership drought relies on the availability of four key recruits from Canberra.
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"It's important to wait until information is available to you and then make decisions from there," MCUE coach Jeremy Rowe said.
"You'd be naive if you're not willing to concede it might have a very large effect on you, but in the same breath there's no need to panic and all of a sudden jump to the worst case scenario either.
"We don't have the Canberra boys for this week, hopefully we can get them back for the last round but if anything changes, we'll continue to change with the climate."
Turvey Park will be without Stephen Camp for the clash with Wagga Tigers, with all their remaining Canberra recruits currently on the injured list.
Griffith and Narrandera, who face each other, are the other two Riverina League clubs with Canberra representation.
In the Farrer League, Barellan is hardest hit and will now be without seven of their strongest players for Saturday's clash at Marrar. It will also mean they are likely to forfeit reserve grade.
The Bombers will lose Rhys Mooney.
The Rock-Yerong Creek will also lose three of their best players, Dean Biermann, Riley Budd and Joe Hancock, for their must-win clash against Temora.
Group Nine will see Tumut, Gundagai and Young all lose key players for this weekend's round.
Group Nine, like most other competitions, have said they will continue to push ahead with their competitions until government advice changes.
Southern Inland Rugby Union are proud they are one of the few rugby competitions in the state still going.
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