Just to keep you all informed, I was asked to join this working group to find out why many games (not 1st team) are cancelled with short notice and why more people are falling out of the bottom of rugby clubs these days, meaning that there are less 3rd and 4th teams around.

A common theme was communication in and between clubs.

The major points being looked at are:

1. Looking at the current pool system
2. Running tournaments on Friday evening on international weekends for lower/older teams
3. Looking at a pool system where you can not only look for a game but offer out a number of players if you only had 6 players to make up a 4th team.
4. Finding out what our local RDO can do to assist in promoting the above
5. Having days where all the spare players from lower sides of lots of different clubs meet at a club, in turn, and play a fixture or run a mini tournament.

I seriously think that this is something that as a club we need to address (in the drop off of numbers) as in the last 3 years we have gone from a 4 team club to a 3 team club and thats only going in one direction. Myself, Matt A, Hugh and Dan Bon are putting our heads together soon to look at how we can address the above but the bottom line is we need more help, I have a job and some weeks it gets too much and the Rugby work has to give, please don’t stand around mourning the loss of our 4th team do something to help get it back.