SYDNEY — Heavy rainfall in Sydney over 12 hours into early Thursday morning forced changes to the practice schedules for California and Hawaii just two days away from their college football season-opener at the Olympic stadium.

Both teams were scheduled to hold open practice sessions at the stadium in western Sydney today, but two to four inches of rain late Wednesday and overnight forced organizers to keep the players off the turf.

Hawaii was given a chance to practice at the University of New South Wales but because it was about an hour away toward the city and into busy traffic, decided to cancel their practice session and did a walk-through later in the day in preparation for Saturday’s game.

“We would have spent more time in traffic than at the practice,” Hawaii team spokesman Derek Inouchi said.

California held a light workout at the same ground Thursday ahead of Friday’s final training session for the game which organizers say is expected to attract a crowd of about 65,000.

“We worked through it,” Cal coach Sonny Dykes said after Wednesday’s rainy training session on the synthetic turf at the University of New South Wales field.

“We had a bit of rain, and bit of cold, not the best weather conditions.” Dykes added as the rain pelted down on a tin roof above him. “Anytime you travel 24 hours there are going to be some obstacles, but overall we’ve done a good job of adjusting.”

The forecast for Saturday is for a 50 percent chance of some light rain and a high of 66.