NEW South Wales Touch Association general manager Dean Russell has always been faced with the challenge of running a successful NSW State Cup event.
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And organisers always overcome those challenges with minimal hiccups annually in Port Macquarie, but this year's event has had a new challenge thrown in - air quality.
Across the country, sporting codes have never discussed policies regarding air quality because "we don't live in Mumbai."
Touch football has been no different until this year's State Cup.
Russell knows this weekend will be a challenge where conditions could change by the hour, but he remained confident the right decisions regarding player welfare would be made.
But the possibility the event would have to be cancelled was never entertained.
"It's going to be difficult; I'm not going to shy away from that because we've never had to experience anything like this in all my time in the sport either as a player, coach or official," he said.
"We've had horrendous weather conditions; we've had oppressive heat, we've had torrential rain and we've had high winds, but we've never had air quality issues."
They will be guided by a few factors this weekend - mainly readings relating to PM10 and PM2.5 particles in the air.
"We've been advised by members of NSW Health on an app which gives you hourly updates which we'll monitor," Russell said.
"When it gets to very poor is when we start to have concerns."
All the action starts from 8am on Friday morning when the first match taps off.
The tournament will wrap up more than seven hundred matches later with the open women's final at 3.35pm and the open men's final at 4.10pm at Regional Stadium on Sunday.
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