Rotherham planning to go straight back up
ROTHERHAM TITANS may still be smarting from the disappointment of their relegation to National Two North, but chairman Nick Cragg insists that they will make the best of a bad situation and are determined to bounce straight back.
The coronavirus-enforced curtailment of 2019/20 saw the Clifton Lane club demoted on the basis of a best playing record formula devised by the Rugby Football Union to determine final league standings.
A former Premiership side, the Titans were playing their rugby in the Championship as recently as 2018, however they found themselves third-frombottom of National One when the season was abandoned in March.
They remained there – just behind rivals Birmingham Moseley – after the game’s governing body applied its average points formula, dropping Martin Jenkinson’s men into the fourth tier for the first time since 1996.
Cragg is adamant that his team would have done enough in their remaining five fixtures to have climbed away from the drop zone, though says it is now just a case of focusing on moving forwards.
“We don’t believe that we deserve to be in this position, but we’ve taken it on the chin,” he said.
“We believed that we had got to grips with the problems we’d had before Christmas and had a better run-in than Birmingham. We wouldn’t be where we are now if if weren’t for coronavirus. We wouldn’t be having this conversation.
“We’re not happy with what we’ve got, but we’ll make the best of it. Promotion back to National One is our aspiration and we think we can do it.”
With so much uncertainty surrounding the issue of when it will be safe for rugby to return, clubs across the country are finding it challenging to make concrete plans for 2020/21.
It remains to be seen when training, let alone competitive
RETURN: fixtures will be permitted, however Rotherham are going about their business as best they can in the hope of assembling a squad that can challenge at the top end of National Two.
“It’s very difficult at the moment because we still don’t know what’s going to happen,” Cragg added.
“We don’t know when we will be able to start training or playing, everything is in limbo.
“We’re being positive. We’re planning for the possibility of the season starting in November, although it might be later than that – perhaps even the new year – and potentially an August return to training.
“We’re going ahead the best we can and are tentatively looking at recruitment. Terms have been offered and accepted [by Titans targets] but these terms are heavily caveated.
“We are lining people up, however we cannot put pen to paper on anything until we hear from the RFU and the government about what is going to happen. Everything is subject to the vagaries of lockdown.”