Star, which has won the Galbraith Shield 28 times since 1908, made the tough call on Tuesday night to default its game against Marist.
Star had 13 players unavailable for Saturday - nine of those players are injured while four are away for other reasons.
The biggest problem was in the front row, Star manager Andrew McHugh said.
It was a very tough call to make. I know we will cop some grief for making this decision, but it was done for safety reasons,'' he said.
Among the front rowers missing are Morgan Mitchell, who is in Australia with the Highlanders, his brother, Brayden, who is recovering from a neck injury, and Sy Waiti, who has a dislocated shoulder.
With Marist having Shaun Stodart and Reuben Northover, who have played at Mitre 10 Cup level, in the mix, McHugh said the Star management was wary of bringing up players from the club's B team and putting them into a position where they were out of their depth.
The club's B team also has front-row injuries, while the club's C team plays in the President's grade, which does not involve pushing in scrums.
We believe we have exhausted every avenue within our club and even some last-minute phone calls to former players, and we don't think we would find a prop from division one who would be up to premier standard,'' McHugh said.
This decision was not made lightly. Since my involvement with the club we have always scraped through with extra players from our original squad, even some games having only 17.
But this is more serious than anything I have ever seen and unfortunately we have no options.''
Rugby Southland rules state if a team defaults two games in a season, it rules them out of play-off contention.
McHugh was confident this week's default would be a one-off and Star would be back on the field for its next outing against Pirates-Old Boys.
While Star sits last in the premier competition, the Waverley Park-based team is just six competition points outside the top four at the midway point in the season.
Otago club rugby has followed a similar downward trend in recent years.
Among all senior grades there are 25 fewer teams than there were 20 years ago.
That included a drop from 12 premier teams in 1998 to nine in 2018.
On one weekend examined by the Otago Daily Times at the start of May, 49 players were unavailable in the premier grade alone.
The week prior to that four teams had defaulted in lower senior grades in Otago.
Representatives from various clubs have confirmed their concerns about the state of the game.
They had said there were fewer players around, although there were plenty of reasons for that.
- By Logan Savory
- Additional reporting Jeff Cheshire