Southport Rugby Club looks forward to fixtures returning after 9 month absence

By George Newell.

Southport Rugby Football Club are looking forward to returning to playing structured fixtures after a nine-month absence – although the rules of the game will be different when they return. 

Director of Rugby Mike Dale is excited by the return of matches, saying it could “mean the difference between players leaving or staying and clubs not shutting down”.

The return has been made possible by the Rugby Football Union (RFU) giving the green light for local rugby clubs to begin playing structured fixtures for the first time since March.

The Premiership resumed playing league fixtures back in mid-August, however the sport’s national governing body has now said that the rest of the teams in the Rugby pyramid can begin playing again, from Friday 18th December.

Although, in order to make the game as Covid secure as possible there have been some modifications to the laws of the game, which are as follows:

• There will be no scrums or mauls in the game
• Where the game would restart with a scrum, this will be replaced with a free kick
• A minimum of five and a maximum of seven players from each team are required to form a lineout

Southport RFC Director of Rugby, Mike Dale, feels these changes are necessary for the state of the grassroots game: “Although this is not ideal it allows the game to get back up and running, this may mean the difference between players leaving or staying and clubs not shutting down for good.”

The new law modifications have led to some debate over team selection, for example, if there are no scrums in the game does a team need three front row forwards on the pitch or can they afford to maybe play another back?

Dale, however, insists that there will be need to alter team selection: “The front five are integral to all other aspects of the game and RFU guidance stipulates that front row should be selected. Front rows are effective in all other areas!”

He continued: “What clubs shouldn’t do is alienate the front row and lose them completely as this hopefully is a temporary fix.”

Dale’s men have not played a full contact 15-a-side game since their narrow 12-13 loss to Aspatria back on the 7th March.

However, fitness levels amongst players have not been too much of a concern as community rugby clubs have been able to do non-contact training since early July and have slowly worked their way up the RFU’s “Return to Rugby Road Map” despite the 2020/21 season being cancelled at grassroots level, back in October.

However, Dale admits that the latest four-week lockdown will have been a hinderance to his players’ fitness levels.

He said: “I am concerned of the levels of physical conditioning, however by the time we are back playing competitively players should be fitter and ready to play.”

Although, the main complication facing community clubs could well be the tiered system as they are not allowed to travel to areas in a different tier to themselves, to play fixtures.

The RFU has produced a “local cluster” of up to seven teams for each region, designed to minimise travel times and provide clubs with structured local competitive fixtures.

Southport is currently a Tier 2 area, and the club makes up a cluster of Bolton, Leigh, Orrell, and Tarleton, but Dale is not concerned about a potential lack of opposition.

He told MerseyInsider: “It will affect our provisional cluster group however by 16th December we may all be in the same tier. At present it just means getting fixtures with teams in the same tier.”

Dale continued: “I’m not concerned as other teams are all in the same boat and it is beyond our control.”

Even if opponents are limited and it will not quite be the same game of rugby we know and love, it will be a delight to see the return of local rugby next weekend, and Southport will be chomping at the bit to mark their return with a win.

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