Stratford, Shottery and Shipston rugby clubs have their say as player shortage take its toll on Warwickshire Merit League fixtures
ALMOST half of the fixtures in a county merit league have not been fulfilled and that does not come as a surprise to bosses of clubs on the Herald patch.
Going into the Christmas break, the Warwickshire League, which has three divisions, has seen 47 out of 103 games (45.6 per cent) classified as a walkover in a damning statement of lower XV rugby.
The majority of matches not being played is down to teams not having enough players, however, there are claims the issue is exacerbated by those who are unwilling to travel for away games.
Stratford, who play in Division One, have only managed to play three of their seven games so far and director of rugby Richard Pepperell told the Herald it has been a struggle to raise a second team throughout the season.
“When I first came here around 2003 we had three teams out every week, now we’re really struggling to get two teams out,” he said.
“Ever since I took over as director of rugby, having a second team has always been a priority, it’s why I’ve always given the captaincy to prominent figures within the club but it’s still difficult to get a second team out. It’s not being neglected but it is spluttering which is frustrating.
“However, we’ve realised that for us the future is bright.
“In the next two or three years, when the next lot of youngsters get older, I can see nothing but positive times ahead but it’s just a matter of being patient.”
When asked if he was surprised by how many games had not been played, Pepperell said: “No I’m not and there’s two sides to the picture. On a national scale the amount of people playing rugby has dropped significantly.
“Society is changing too and players don’t want to play week in, week out. Even now, our best players are looking for those rest weekends where they can spend time with their families or go on holiday. For us as a club, we’ve not had a consistent Colts team. There’s been periods where we’ve had a successful Colts team but then we’ve gone two or three years where we haven’t had one.
“It’s about having that conveyor belt to bring people through and that’s something we’ve missed. The positive now is that we’ve got that conveyor belt.
"While we don’t have a Colts team now, there are teams all the way through from U5s to U17s. Those teams are healthy and thriving and that’s down to the great work of Tom Stowe and Flo Vialan.
“The county RFUs understand player numbers have been dropping. The second team game is under threat but they are trying their best to get games played.”
One of the ways Stratford have tried to resolve the issue of raising a second team is by forging a closer relationship with Shottery, who also play their games at Pearcecroft. Pooling players together gives a greater chance of games getting played and Shottery themselves know the frustrations of walkovers.
Last season, having returned to the Warwickshire Merit League structure for the first time in 20 years, the Blue and Golds won the Division Three title. However, from their 18 games, 12 of them were walkovers, meaning the club only played one-third of their scheduled competitive matches.
The club’s fixtures secretary, Gregg Cave, told the Herald: “Unfortunately I’m not surprised by how many games are not being played. We won the league last season because we had a team available every single week.
“A lot of the teams in that league were in Coventry and were struggling to get enough players willing to travel.
“We were finding that if we had enough players to go away then games would be played but not the other way around. However, that was not down to those teams being bone idle, they were really struggling to find players who could travel for away games.
“This season we’ve had two games where we’ve been unable to raise a side and I’d say we’re borderline in terms of the players we have available, so that’s why we’ve been working harder and communicating more with Richard Pepperell at Stratford.”
On the future of the lower XV game, Cave added: “I think we forget we only came out the pandemic a year ago. While the amount of people playing rugby has dropped and the game has an issue in the media surrounding concussion, I believe we’ll see a gradual increase in players.”
For Shipston chairman Andrew Powell, he was surprised the number of games not played was not more than 45.6 per cent and he re-iterated the issue of trying to get teams to travel to Mayo Road for league fixtures.
“We’re not perfect in this I will admit, there’s been a couple of occasions where our second team have decided they don’t want to travel, which is not very impressive,” he told the Herald.
“Nobody will travel south and that’s an inherent problem, it’s been happening for quite a while.
“Then there’s a national shortage of players, particularly in the front row, so that doesn’t help either. It seems like clubs would rather not play than travel.
"Last season we could only muster two home games for our second team, thankfully we’ve had better luck this season but clubs would rather the revenue go behind their own bars than sending players elsewhere.”
He added: “We’re being encouraged to play ten or even 12-a-side but nobody wants to, it never happens. Teams will not travel with less than 15 and if they have less than 15, they call it off and don’t get a penalty for it.”
Steve Wilkes, president of the Warwickshire RFU, told the Herald that the governing body had held a meeting at Old Coventrians Rugby Club last Wednesday (7th December) where all the issues were raised.
Wilkes said the Warwickshire League was aware of the complaints and was doing all it could to encourage fixtures to be played under the Game On scheme launched by England Rugby.
The campaign allows teams to play with a minimum of ten players and also offers flexibility surrounding contested or uncontested scrums and line-outs, the duration of matches and even the size of the pitch.
Wilkes added: “Because of the demands of the league, there is a lot of travel. As clubs have a lot of young players, if they work on a Saturday, particularly of a night, they’re not going to want to travel up to 90 minutes to a game and then 90 minutes back. What we also find is some clubs are tribal when it comes to sharing players.
“Second team leagues are struggling but we are encouraging clubs to do their best to get games played.”