Rubbish was visible across the oval on Sunday and, while he said it was left in a “fairly ordinary state”, council’s manager of Recreation Services said it was hardly surprising given the wet weather and magnitude of people who visited during the three days.

James McKechnie said council staff had been at the oval since 4am yesterday to clean up the site to prepare for the NSW Girls Soccer Championships being held this week.

“The official agreement is that we hire the ground out and we clean certain sections - change rooms and amenities - each day and we clean the whole ground when the event is over,” he said.

“It was left in a fairly ordinary condition, but they had a very large crowd attend over the three days, and the other side is that the wet weather wouldn’t have helped.

“As far as I know there was no report of any vandalism or anything like that.”

Mr McKechnie said it could be difficult to maintain the rubbish with so many visitors.

“It comes back to the general public too, and how they treat the grounds, but as far as I know nothing occurred that was too drastic.

“We try and control it and our guys who were on call went up there when they got a call at the weekend about the amenities, and they have been up there since 4am [yesterday] cleaning up to get ready for the soccer titles on this week.”

The David Peachey Foundation Aboriginal Rugby League Knockout brought more than 24 Indigenous rugby league and netball teams to the city.

Mr McKechnie said, “obviously there had been a few issues” in the past to sort out, but they continued to address them.

The competition has grown with seven additional rugby league teams competing in this year’s carnival from the last, and all have indicated they would like to compete again next year.

emily.wheeler@ruralpress.com