A disappointed Forbes and District Cricket president Andrew Glasson said the town team had to pull out of the state-wide knock-out as there were too few players available for the trip to Wellington.

“We had scouted 20 plus players in order to get a team so it was very disappointing, especially considering four players were to make their town debut,” Glasson said.

Glasson said there may be repercussions for the association as Cricket NSW has fined teams and imposed bans on towns for the next season under similar circumstances.

“We might be suspended from the comp for a year, which again would be very disappointing.”

Forbes has performed well in the competition in the past, qualifying for the semi-finals on three occasions, and Glasson said expectations were again high.

“Absolutely – the teams we’ve had have made several finals weeks – at Gunnedah, Cootamundra and Temora – and there’s still a large proportion of those guys playing Saturday cricket and we expected they could have gone a long way.”

Glasson said the forfeit was due to lack of application, not a dearth of talent, and he was not the only disappointed cricket supporter.

“There are older players in town with a lot of cricket respect who are very disappointed as well.”

There was also a forfeit in the opening round of the Saturday competition with Post Office Hotel unable to muster a team for their match against Forbes Inn / Masterstroke Painters, but Glasson said this was expected due to the start of harvest.