The West Coast Chargers (wearing red) still hope to enter a representative team in the South Island tournament despite no premier club grade league on the West Coast.

The West Coast - a breeding ground for close to 50 Kiwis - has been forced to cancel its premier club rugby league competition due to a lack of player numbers.

West Coast Rugby League (WCRL) president Peter Kerridge said the Coast still hoped to field a representative team in the South Island series at the end of the season, but there was no premier football, week-to-week, for the first time in 101 years.

Forty-nine men have worn the Kiwis jersey while representing West Coast.

NZPA/Ross Setford West Coast Rugby League president Peter Kerridge, left, has tried to keep the code alive on the coast since 1997.

At one point, after the Second World War, with the mining and forestry sectors flourishing, the West Coast supplied the entire Kiwis forward pack.

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The West Coast had two players - standoff half George Menzies and hooker Jock Butterfield - in New Zealand Rugby League's Team of the Century. The pair were also inducted as Legends of League - the NZRL's hall of fame - alongside fellow Coasters Charlie McBride, Bill McLennann, Ces Mountford, Frank Mulcare and Tony Coll.

NZPA/Ross Setford A big crowd for the Kiwis' 2006 match against the NZ Residents in Greymouth.

Only a year ago - at the time of the WCRL centenary - Kerridge told Stuff that rugby league had put the West Coast on the world map "as much as Monteith's beer and whitebait".

But a West Coast-registered player hasn't represented the Kiwis since Glen Gibb's selection in 1985.

For several decades, West Coasters such as Quentin Pongia, have had to leave the province to go on to rugby league glory. Newcastle Knights hooker Slade Griffin is the latest Coaster plying his trade in the NRL.

West Coast Rugby League A capacity crowd at Wingham Park for Greymouth's sole rugby league test between the Kiwis and Great Britain in 1954.

However, the province still managed to field a club competition until this year despite mounting economic pressures.

But Kerridge said the decline in traditional West Coast industries, particularly mining, had taken its toll on the potential player pool.

"It's disappointing, and people who live away from the Coast have expressed shock and surprise. But it's not a surprise to those of us living here. It's been coming.

Martin Hunter Former Kiwis captain Tony Coll, one of the last homegrown West Coast Kiwis, pictured in 2006.

"I've been in the job 20-odd years and we've lasted 10 years longer than I thought we would.

"It's just a reality of the economy here.

"It's death by a thousand cuts, and we're at 900 or so."

West Coast clubs once gave their Canterbury counterparts as good as they got in the Thacker Shield, the symbol of South Island rugby league supremacy. A West Coast combined team beat Canterbury champions Linwood last year for the coast's first Thacker Shield victory in 20 years.

But the coast's premier competition had dwindled to four teams by last season.

Kerridge said Waro-rakau (the entity formed by the once-powerful Blackball and Ngahere clubs) indicated they would not be able to field a team in 2018.

"That left us with three, so we had a sort of a go at organising a competition with a nine-a-side to start with, but then the third team [Cobden-Kohinoor] fell away, so we were down to two clubs [Suburbs and Brunner-Runanga].

"They played each other a couple of times and then decided they weren't interested in continuing like that."

Three or four players, including promising teenager Brad Campbell, were commuting across the Main Divide to play for Christchurch clubs each weekend, Kerridge said.

"We've also got last year's rep team, about 30 guys, who have committed to keep training over the winter under coach Brad Tacon.

"We're hoping we will still have enough keen leaguies to have a team in the South Island rep competition."

Kerridge - president since 1997 and now "chairman, secretary and treasurer" - said the WCRL had tried everything to keep the game going.

For years, some young men on the West Coast have been playing both rugby union and rugby league with both codes struggling for numbers.

Kerridge said the WCRL had floodlights at its Wingham Park headquarters and had been open to playing "on Friday nights, or Saturdays and Sundays".

They shifted the start of the 2017 season to mid-February from April and were not averse to playing a Thursday night 18s age-group competition.

"Some people have asked 'have you thought about sending a team to Christchurch?', as if we hadn't thought of things like that," Kerridge said.

"But it just doesn't work. The guys are social footballers and crossing the Alps in mid winter every week isn't a goer."

Kerridge said the WCRL had spoken to Tasman, who had three teams in Nelson and Marlborough. But it was difficult to play a travelling competition on Saturdays due to some players' rugby union commitments, or on Sundays because of some Tasman players' church involvement.

There may be a possibility for some games against teams outside the district before the South Island championship starts.

Kerridge said there were still some positive developments on the West Coast with the Brunner and Runanga clubs both celebrating their centennials in 2019.

"There's still plenty of interest and some talented kids coming through. There are still 300 kids in the schoolboys [grades], our under-19s beat Canterbury, 20-18, last year to win the South Island title and we're hosting the South Island 15s and 17s tournaments this year, and we'll still have teams in both."