At this stage, Coote said the Lions look set to head into recess for the 2022 season as the club keeps it's options open for the future.

The Lions have been forced into the second grade women's competition in AFL Canberra and no longer see it as a viable option.

"It's just not worth it," Coote said.

"They've got the premier league, like what we're doing down here, and if you're not affiliated with a men's team, you have to step into the community competition and it's not financially good for the club.

"We're constantly paying for buses and trying to scrape together a team, and we do get a team, we travel other there and then nobody travels over here for community comp. So we constantly get forfeits.

"When you're playing in the first division, it's all good. Teams are going to travel here because it's a competitive comp but the community comp, they think it's not worth travelling to Wagga if we're going to get flogged. People just don't want to do it."

Coote said the Lions are likely to take the year to assess options going forward.

"We might just sit in idle and see what happens," she said.

"If other options arise, we might take them but at this stage we're not going to be participating in the Canberra comp."

MORE SPORT NEWS

The Lions were formed in 2002 and played their first season in 2003. They were often one of the forces of the AFL Canberra women's competition, going down in six grand finals, before winning the division two premiership in 2018.

Last year the Lions sat in eighth position on the second grade ladder before COVID hit, but lost three of their seven home games to forfeits.

Coote said their removal from the first grade competition in Canberra also made it hard to attract the region's promising youth players.

"Putting us down into the community comp kind of took away the pathway for youth girls," she said.

"There was a pathway for the girls to be successful in the women's league but they want to play first grade. You're not going to get looked at community comp, we don't even get a look in for the rep teams anymore."

A lot of the Lions players have joined East Wagga-Kooringal for the AFL Southern NSW women's competition season, where Coote is the coach.

She said a lot of the women will likely move to netball.

"Most of the girls look like converting to netball so they're still busy through the off-season," she said.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: