Sunday afternoon's match between the Moruya Sharks and the Merimbula-Pambula Bulldogs was called off late last week, meaning both first-grade and reserve grade will need to be made up sometime in the future.

Group 16 Chairman Allan Wilton said the decision was made late on Friday afternoon after the group exhausted all possible fixes.

"We tried every avenue to borrow a referee from a neighbouring competition, and we were able to get one ref from Group 7 who handled the game in Narooma," he said.

"Because we've expanded to a 10-team first-grade competition, we always need at least one additional referee every weekend."

Mr Wilton said several referees had either retired or moved away over the past couple of years, leading to the current shortage.

However, he said this issue wasn't unique to Group 16, who will hold meetings this week to discuss how they tackle the shortage in the near future.

"One of the problems we face, and other country areas face, is we have a good recruitment system for our younger referees, but as they get older they'll leave for university or employment," he said.

"The real difficult part with refereeing is you can't have a short-term fix, it takes a considerable number of years to train and develop them to be able to ref first grade.

"You can't just pluck a bloke out of the crowd and throw him out there three weeks later."

Moruya Sharks treasurer Chris Jay said the club was "disappointed" with the decision.

"Hopefully this doesn't happen again to any club," he said.

"We need to start negotiating to play more Saturday games."

The news of the cancellation was quickly shared with popular Facebook page Country Rugby League Comprehensive, and most commenters noted how tough being a country ref was.

"Maybe the crowds should stop abusing the referees and then maybe more people would be inclined towards taking the job on," Allan Cameron said.

"Refs put up with abuse and carry on, of course they are leaving the game," Joby Patten pitched in.

"More training and development, and a carrot (are needed) to entice some ex-players to pick up the whistle."

Page member Alex Hopes shared his bad experience as a referee.

"I was refereeing, got sick of the abuse, being called f***head, cheat etc.," he said.

"I walked away from the game after 20 years of volunteering."

Clyde Watt also put the shortage down to poor crowd behaviour.

"Maybe people will not commit due to the unreasonable abuse they get from spectators," he said.

"Some fools think it's their rights to go on like an idiot, well give those fools a whistle and ask them to go out there every weekend and cop what these community-minded people are going through.

"They wouldn't do it."

Mr Wilton said Group 16 referees were encouraged to deal with abusive spectators by having them warned or removed by ground managers.

"We acknowledge crowd behaviour plays a role in the retention of referees, not only in rugby league, but in all sports," he said.

"Our referees are instructed to deal with abuse by stopping the game and having the ground manager attend to any complains.

"We don't accept abuse at our grounds."