The coronavirus pandemic has left Group 19's season launch "up in the air", its chairman Terry Carson has said, with staging matches shaping as a "very hard" proposition.
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Carson said the clubs were waiting to hear from NSWRL what COVID-19 protocols would need to be in place for matches to be staged.
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Carson said: "We plan at this stage to have a competition, but it's certainly very up in the air. The big issue is whether we can have crowds or not."
Carson said the clubs believed that "there's not a lot of point in playing" if fans were barred from match, as the sport would not be financially viable.
"Basically, we've left it in the clubs' hands to figure out where they're at," he said, "and then to come back to us - whether they think they can play or not.
"If we get enough clubs interested, we'll try and have a competition."
At present, Carson said, "it's a little bit hard to say exactly where we're at" - but launching the season was "gonna be very hard by the looks of things".
"That's what club's wanna know: whether it's even possible [to stage matches under the potential protocols]," he said.
"Some of the things that have been talked about are gonna be pretty hard - [they will] put a lot of pressure on clubs and volunteers."
