![Tech Waratahs have had to forfeit their Illawarra rugby game against Avondale on Saturday due to a horrendous injury list. Picture by Wesley Lonergan Tech Waratahs have had to forfeit their Illawarra rugby game against Avondale on Saturday due to a horrendous injury list. Picture by Wesley Lonergan](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/kZL4qV6yTxfrWZJxKQxjSN/a442ee00-3268-48ec-b7f3-46a5bcd26c15.jpg/r0_301_4677_2941_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Tech Waratahs have had to forfeit their upcoming game against Avondale due to what coach Matt Evans has labelled a horrendous injury list.
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This is the second time that a team has forfeited a game against the high-flying Wombats this Illawarra rugby season, after injury-hit Bowral pulled out of a clash against Avondale in late June.
Evans, who spent most of Friday trying to "cobble together enough players", though was adamant he was left with little choice but to call the game scheduled for Saturday off.
"It's disappointing but there's not much more we could have done to get a team out on the field," he said.
"We have 32 players across the grades with genuine injury concerns. This is the worst I've seen during my coaching career."
Avondale will be awarded a 27-0 win and receive valuable competition points but coach Joe Aiona was desperate for his side to play another tough game of rugby after having not having played many games during the past month due to a forfeit and bye round.
Aiona was also keen for Avondale to get back on the park and make up for the disappointment of a last-start loss to reigning premiers Shoalhaven.
With his Tech Waratahs side in fourth-place, Evans was also keen to play and try to pick up valuable points on the run home to hopefully a semifinal berth.
"If we didn't abide by the competition rules, then technically we could have fielded a side," he said.
"I've got a very long injury list at the minute and I've got people who are 50-50 and on limited minutes.
"Even if I play tomorrow I have to end up playing with 14 men probably on both teams because I have people who are only cleared for 25 or 35 minutes, including both my halves in second grade and two of my starting pack in first grade.
"It's a bit of an unwinnable that I've been trying to win today, I just haven't got it right."
With no spare weekend allocated in the Illawarra rugby calendar for such incidences or washouts, Tech were left with little choice but to forfeit.
"It's a shame because I've got about 30 people who want to have a game. I just don't have enough of the right people in the right place if that makes sense.
"I've got enough people to put a squad together, but I don't have enough front rows and I don't have enough locks.
"The last couple of weeks is we've had a centre fill in as a prop. We've had a winger fill in as a prop, we've had a flanker fill in as a prop.
"Currently I've got two almost 50-year-old blokes playing second grade props and they're both flankers.
"Right now I've got more centres than I have anything else, which is a problem, but we'll get there, we'll get there."
Evans said the club brought in two physical therapists on Tuesday to try and address some of the injury concerns but he said some of this season's injuries were "too far gone".
"Our injuries last year were bad because we had 11 players struggle after playing three games in the one weekend at the Country Championships. Only three came back fit," he said.
"That was bad. I think at this point of the season we've just picked up a lot of big injuries. You can't fix the concussion one.
"We've seen a lot of shoulders and we've seen a lot of knees this year which we didn't have really last year.
"At the end of the day we play the people only when they're fit.
"We've had 10 season-ending injuries this year, primarily to our first grade squad, which I didn't have last year.
We've had 10 season-ending injuries this year, primarily to our first grade squad, which I didn't have last year. Some of them have been unusual, like I had one bloke that needed an operation on his hearing canal because he had a blood clot. Like that's not stuff that we can account for.
- Tech Waratahs coach Matt Evans
"Some of them have been unusual, like I had one bloke that needed an operation on his hearing canal because he had a blood clot. Like that's not stuff that we can account for.
"We had a broken arm, we've had a torn Achilles which is just an awful one.
"It's been a lot but we haven't lost hope. Sure, it's disappointing it's got to this stage and we've had to forfeit a game but we'll be back.
"We think that things will start to improve sooner rather than later. We will have some people coming in next week and hopefully others will also be fit to play very soon."
Meantime, Kiama will look to consolidate its spot in the top four with a victory over the Bowral Blacks at Kiama Showground on Saturday.
Also on Saturday, Campbelltown will battle Camden, while Shoalhaven are raging favourites to maintain their 11-game winning streak when they visit University.
The reigning premiers have now won 17-games on the trot, six of these came last season, including the grand final victory over Avondale.
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