BOTH Kyneton's senior and reserves football teams have played their last games of the Bendigo Football-Netball League season.

As they did last weekend against Sandhurst, the Tigers' seniors and reserves teams will again forfeit their home game against Strathfieldsaye this Saturday because of a lack of numbers caused by the unavailability of their Melbourne-based players due to the metropolitan lockdown that has been extended into September.

However, like last weekend, the Tigers will again field an under-18 team, while president Hayden Evans indicated all netball was likely to proceed, but needs to be discussed at a meeting tonight.

Evans said the club's situation from last week when it had only nine reserves and 13 senior players to pick from hadn't changed and that with 20 Melbourne-listed players unavailable it wasn't viable for the club to field its open-age teams against the Storm.

"Unfortunately, it's the same for us this week," Evans said on Wednesday.

"Strathfieldsaye made contact with us as they were obviously very keen to get something going this weekend and we discussed it as a club, but we feel it's not the right thing for us to do to play seniors or reserves and it's a decision we're comfortable with.

"When you've got players who haven't trained for a month and then you've got to bring players up who aren't ready... the situation just hasn't allowed us to put senior or reserves footy on the park.

"If we did put out a senior team it would have had 10 under-18s in it, so that's 10 under-18s who we can't play in the under-18s, who are in the finals.

"Is that the right thing for a club to do? Our answer is no.

"For us, what it comes down to is do you want to bring up 10 under-18 players to get smashed by 250 points, or do you want to allow the kids to play in their age group when they're playing finals with their mates, and again, we think it's the right call."

Asked how those available senior and reserves players feel about missing another week and having their season cut short, Evans said: "They understand the scenario and that this isn't a normal situation we're facing.

"They'd rather we didn't finish the season like this, but they understand why."

With no return to the field this year, the Tigers' seniors will end the 2021 season under first-year coach Paul Chapman with three wins and 10 losses.

Before the Tigers' back-to-back forfeits, the BFNL hadn't had a senior team forfeit since Northern United early in the 1996 season.

Not surprisingly given their location, Kyneton and Gisborne have been the two hardest hit clubs by the unavailability of Melbourne-based players due to the metro lockdown travel restrictions.

"It's a challenging time for everyone. Kyneton and Gisborne are part of our league and they have been presented some challenges that other clubs share, but not to the extent of Kyneton and Gisborne," BFNL manager Cameron Tomlins said.

"Our preference would be for as many matches to continue to be played as possible and we have worked with a number of football and netball teams over the past seven days to make sure they could roll out matches."

With no senior or reserves games for Strathfieldsaye this weekend, the Storm will head into the finals missing another week of football, but with both teams having stitched up top spot now that they have another guaranteed four points this week.

"It looks like we'll play an intra-club match this Saturday," Storm co-coach Darryl Wilson said.

"It's disappointing we won't get to play this weekend... we rang Kyneton and said we'd take all of our stars out and just play with the kids, but it's not happening.

"So we've got to deal with what comes our way and at this stage we'll have a hit-out on our home deck on Saturday in the afternoon and try to simulate match conditions the best we possibly can.

"It's something we've done a bit of over the past month anyway when we've been able to... we just split the teams and go for it."

The Storm returned to the field after a five-week hiatus in emphatic fashion last Saturday, thumping Eaglehawk by 77 points at Tannery Lane.

There was a major injury concern though out of the game for the Storm, with exciting young tall forward Cooper Jones suffering a dislocated shoulder.

"Cooper is still to have scans, so we won't know for a few days yet what it means for him," Wilson said.

This Saturday in the BFNL - Castlemaine v Kangaroo Flat, Gisborne v Sandhurst, Kyneton v Strathfieldsaye (no seniors or reserves), South Bendigo v Maryborough, Eaglehawk v Golden Square.

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