Fixture postponements turn start of amateur rugby season into ‘slow-motion car crash’

A spate of postponements at community level due to lack of playing numbers in the early weeks of the season is being compared to a “slow-motion car crash” for the grass-roots game.

In the Rugby Football Union’s South West Division alone there have already been more than 50 walkovers awarded after teams failed to fulfil fixtures in the first three weeks of the new season. In the Counties 3 Tribute Berks Bucks & Oxon North league, only one of five scheduled fixtures took place last weekend.

There is a similar issue in the RFU’s Midland division, which accounts for levels 5-11, says Phil Maynard, who has a strong claim to be Mr Midlands rugby. He was director of rugby at Pertemps Bees when they pulled off the greatest giant-killing in English rugby history, defeating Wasps in a Powergen Cup quarter-final in 2004, and has held similar roles at Worcester Warriors, Coventry and Stourbridge.

Now he is managing director at Bournville, whose first XV are in National League 2 West, the fourth tier of the English pyramid where the Birmingham team just played their “local” derby against Macclesfield. Yet while Bournville are the epitome of an ambitious, sustainable grass-roots club, Maynard believes a looming disaster is unfolding around them with the second XV facing a series of postponements in their league.

‘Lifeblood of the game is draining away’

“It is a disaster for the community game,” Maynard said. “It is like a slow-motion car crash. Most of the junior clubs below National Level would be putting out five to six sides out every week as well as their colts teams. Now they are struggling to get one side out on Saturday. We are finding our second XV are getting fixtures cried off every week. I have been speaking to a few people about this and it is just an unmitigated disaster. The lifeblood of the game is just draining away.”

While the Bournville second XV did get a fixture to go ahead at the weekend, they ran out 129-0 winners against Worcester’s second XV even with the referee blowing for full time 15 minutes early. “That does not do anyone any favours at all,” Maynard said. Without regular matches, Maynard fears many valued members of his squad will just drift away from the sport.

Another one of Maynard’s former clubs, Kings Norton, have failed to get enough players to fulfil a fixture in Counties 3 Midlands West (South) for the last two weeks. “Sadly they are crying fixtures off all the time and they are probably going to do it again,” Maynard said. “They used to run five or six sides on a Saturday and two colts teams; now they can’t get one out. What does that say? It is a really sad situation but I just don’t think anyone at the RFU cares about anything other than the Premiership.”

The picture is mixed nationwide and the RFU are still processing the data from week three of the season, but their initial indications suggest that there has not been a drop-off in the participation rate from last season. “Our statistics show that this season has seen an increase in the number of scheduled RFU Men’s League matches, with match completion rates between 93-94 per cent, the same level as last season,” an RFU spokesperson said.

Yet there seems to be a discrepancy between the RFU’s data and the anecdotal evidence that Maynard and other community figures are providing of more and more clubs struggling to put out a first XV let alone multiple teams on a Saturday.