Orrell out to leave tough times behind
NOT even a club with as proud a heritage as Orrell is immune to the participation crisis affecting rugby union.
The club that were once the width of a post away from being crowned champions of England had to concede their third match of the season last weekend because they were unable to raise a team.
The game against Liverpool Collegiate was one of four games out of five last weekend in the Counties 2 ADM 2 Lancashire & Cheshire league classed as a home walkover.
Whereas once Orrell was the place to play rugby in the North West, helping to launch the careers of such stellar talents like Austin Healey, Covid-19 and the change of league structure/the introduction of an endof-season Cup have made it a constant battle to get enough bodies on the pitch.
Relegation to what is effectively level nine is already confirmed and it looks as though a line has been drawn under their current league season despite Orrell having one game outstanding.
“It’s down to a combination of things, all clubs are suffering with player availability,” said club secretary John Huyton, explaining the club’s struggles.
“If we go back to preCovid, we had quite a young coach, Paul Wingfield, who brought new life into the club and that brought some players in from Waterloo and one from Preston Grasshoppers
and that transformed the senior set-up. The first team started winning virtually every game and all the players seemed to flood back and we got a second team up and running.
“Then we had Covid, and those two years off, and Paul moved on for personal reasons.
“When we set up again after Covid, the RFU leagues and the ADM leagues were in a right mess and once things settled, we were in a much higher level that we wanted to be in because a lot of players hadn’t returned but the RFU said no, we had to stay where we were, and consequently we lost every game, except one.
“We then moved into the ADM Lancashire County leagues, which is now back under the umbrella of the RFU, and again we asked to go into the bottom level to rebuild because we had lost six to eight players to retirement or they had moved on. It was a tough season.”
With poor weather causing some matches to be pushed back, some rearranged dates have clashed with the start of the RFU’s new Papa John’s Community Cup competition and have had to be cancelled, forcing a premature end to the league season.
For Orrell, that was a real shame because, buoyed by an influx of local rugby league players, they had started to pick up some wins, including a 17-14 victory against fellow basement dwellers and rivals, Wigan. A gate of 200-300 watched the derby and drunk the club dry of Guinness.
“The RFU told the league secretaries that the Papa John’s Cup must take priority because the final’s at Twickenham,” explained Huyton.
“We had a call last Friday saying the Littleborough match (yesterday) isn’t going to go ahead because of the Papa John’s Cup, and then we’ve got the Liverpool Collegiate game still to play but I think the lads have said, if that is the case, the season is finished.
“We only had eight to 10 players saying they were available, out of a playing group of 90, although only 18-20 of those are what you could consider first-teamers.”
The problems over player availability meant the second team had to be shelved around Christmas but Huyton is hopeful that the buzz around the club will return and they’ll approach their centenary season in 2027 on the front foot.
Plans to purchase a new ground and move away from John Rigby College are still in place, including buying back Edge Hall Road, which they left in 2007.
“It’s not all doom and gloom,” said Huyton, whose association with the club goes back 42 years to when he was a colt.
“We are going into a lower league and looking at the clubs in that league, we should be very comfortable in mid-table if not near the top. A lot of our games this season were only lost by small margins.
“We’ve still got the funding campaign going for new facilities and we have got our centenary in 2027 and we have just formed a centenary committee where we are looking to celebrate 100 years of Orrell Rugby Football Club.
“The minis and juniors are buzzing, we have got two junior sides in Cup finals and we have got a good influx of juniors coming through.
“We’re certainly not going anywhere and we have got big plans, it’s just maintaining the senior playing side.”