RFU should make it easier to join the league structure

IT IS hard to disagree with Jeff Gage’s letter in last week’s TRP, when he writes of the alarm bells that should be ringing at Twickenham after the secession of 24 Lancashire clubs.

Jeff Probyn also rightly alludes to the halcyon days pre-professionalism, when all clubs had multiple sides and fixtures that allowed clubs to play all their sides against the same local club on the same day.

It will be interesting to see whether the two Lancastrian leagues are able to re-create anything like that situation. It is important, though to recognise that National League levels of rugby are not of themselves inconsistent with the maintenance of large clubs with multiple senior sides.

It is a matter of will and determination to sustain social rugby alongside a successful first XV squad and there are a number of examples at Levels 3, 4 and 5 of clubs that are achieving this.

I think it fair to say, though, that most, if not all, such clubs are experiencing difficulties in establishing regular fixtures for their lower sides.

The RFU need to devote some attention to devise ways to help solve this problem. One possible way – ironically, in light of the Lancashire clubs’ move – would be to make it much easier for such teams to enter the lower levels of the existing league structure. At the moment in a lot of counties this seems to be virtually impossible. JOHN ALLANSON Bishop’s Stortford RFC