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Report on RFU Meeting held at Lancaster on Wednesday 18 July.

Report on RFU Meeting held at Lancaster on Wednesday 18 July.

Trudi Ford19 Jul 2018 - 12:58
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Report from Trevor Keogh.

This is a follow up to my last statement concerning the league structures for the coming season. A meeting was held last night at the Holiday Inn, Lancaster attended by reps from Cumbria, Cheshire and Lancashire as well as the Chair of Cheshire RFU, the Secretary of the new breakaway Lancashire Leagues and 4 reps from the RFU at Twickenham. As a reminder, this meeting was called as a result of an appeal submitted by Cumbria clubs upheld on the grounds of a lack of consultation by the RFU when deciding league structures. The success of this appeal was due mainly to the hard work put in by Keswick member John Wilson on the legal aspects of the appeal where the RFU was represented by a London barrister.

As you can imagine, there was a robust exchange of views and in depth discussion on various league options put forward. Cumbria's aim was to keep a 14 team level 7 league for N Lancs and Cumbria for season 2018-19 before a promised complete reorganisation of the North of England leagues for 2019-20. The RFU reps committed to making a decision on this matter yesterday evening with only 6 weeks to go until the new season starts.

There was discussion on Lancs and Cheshire teams difficulties in getting players to travel to Cumbria due to length of travel times, shift patterns etc. It was pointed out that exactly the same arguments apply to Cumbrian clubs, if not more so. Various clubs gave individual cases of struggling to get teams out at all and travel making the situation worse. Arguments were presented by Cumbrian clubs about player development and the time, effort and resources invested in gaining promotion and pushing for higher standards in difficult circumstances.

Arguments were then put forward about standards of rugby in the proposed leagues. A total of 8 different clubs stated that under the main Cumbrian proposal they would have to be moved to leagues well above their standard where they could expect "hammerings" every week, be concerned for player safety and even retaining players because of complete mismatches. This was the clinching argument. Cumbria asked for a break in the meeting to discuss the matter between ourselves and felt forced to agree that for one season only we would operate in Cumbria Leagues on the basis that the RFU would immediately start the process of sorting out the North Division leagues for 2019-20.

After a long, drawn out process, the upshot is that Keswick will play next season in Cumbria 1 which is classed as a Level 7 league. There will be one guaranteed promotion place to Level 6 which is currently North West 1 where Carlisle play. There will be a play off place for the team that finishes second who will play the second placed team in Lancs/Cheshire 1 for a place at Level 6.

As things stand there will be 8 teams in Cumbria 1 - Keswick, Aspatria, Wigton, St Benedicts, Upper Eden, Hawcoat Park, Whitehaven and Cockermouth. To be confirmed but it looks as though we will play each other home and away once. The league will then spilt in to top 4 and bottom 4. Whichever half we are in, we will play each other again home and away. This gives a total of 20 fixtures. As you can all see, this will be a real rugby challenge and it would be fair to say there will be no easy games. I think that having seen the way our teams played last year and with the team and club spirit we are building, we can rise to this and show just how good we are. It will need a big effort from all players and members to really give it a go. As mentioned before the 2nd team will also be in a challenging league with travel to far flung spots - again I know that we as a club are up to it and will give it a great shot. We will also look to fill gaps in the fixture list with possible friendlies which may involve away bus trips at 1st team level also. We are determined to keep developing the club from top to bottom and not to stand still, so lets crack on and get out there and show them all what we can do.

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