The Tigers refused that request but agreed to play 16-a-side against the winless Hawks to avoid cancelling the fixture. Unsurprisingly, Queanbeyan thrashed the home side 19.25 (139) to 3.1 (19) as Dean Lord booted four goals and Alex page finished with three. Coaches are urging AFL Canberra to move its general bye round to align with festival following the embarrassing incident. Tigers coach Dave Corcoran said he'd never seen a first-grade side unable to field a team and called for change. "I’d say it's a first in league history," Corcoran said.

"They called during the week and asked for players to make the game competitive but we didn't feel it was right to have our guys play against us in first grade. "They didn’t have a team at all in reserves. We were hoping they'd forfeit reserve grade and those players could shuffle up but they could still only get 20 guys. "We lost a stack of blokes to Splendour as well. Next year AFL Canberra need to schedule the general bye around Splendour." L-R: Tigers Lachlan Squire, Hawks Jonathan Mosslar, Tigers Jeremy Bridger. Credit:Jamila Toderas Tuggeranong's trouble isn't restricted to unavailability and injuries, they've been thrashed every round this season and are averaging just three goals per game.

But Corcoran has a solution to make the Hawks and fellow battlers Gungahlin more competitive next season. "The Canberra Demons new recruits should be aligned to Tuggeranong and Gungahlin so the quality players coming to Canberra are distributed to those clubs," Corcoran said. "We want an even competition. We don't want Tuggers and Gungahlin getting pumped every week. I think Gungahlin had six NEAFL players and Eastlake had four yesterday, it doesn't make sense." Hawks coach Peter Ashcroft agreed the general bye should be moved after a "pretty ordinary" Sunday, but said there was no quick fix to turn the results around. "It definitely needs to be looked at for next year, either split the players with us or neither of us should have any NEAFL players," Ashcroft said.

"The last two times we played Gungahlin they had six NEAFL players and they made the difference, in the first game they kicked 13 goals between them. "There's several arguments about how you do it and what works best but we have to be realistic. "We can't have guys who don't know our game plans coming in all the time and you can't force blokes to play at clubs they don't want to. "It's a tricky situation with a lot of factors. There won't be one solution that fits everyone but we need to do something." AT A GLANCE: