Mcdonald hopes to be better after crisis
Bath Rugby CEO Tarquin Mcdonald has said the club wants to emerge from the coronavirus pandemic “better and stronger”.
Premiership Rugby suspended the current season in March due to the virus lockdown.
Doubts have been raised across the country about how England’s top clubs would cope financially ever since.
But Mr Mcdonald said the club is being carefully managed through the situation and reinforced his desire to be as open as possible with supporters about how the club is doing.
He said: “We know we need to be clear and transparent with everyone because there will be a long tail to this crisis, economically and socially.
“Everyone involved with the club has been brilliant - we have had to make decisions and the way everyone has responded has been amazing and humbling.
“We are taking all the steps we can to manage the business, including staff and players taking the 25 per cent wage reduction.
“We took a lot of time over managing that decision because we want to make sure no-one is placed in serious harm.
“It will be tough across sport but we will manage our way through. We want to emerge from this better and stronger.”
As the suspension of the season continues, reports have emerged that early July is being targeted by the top clubs as a best-case scenario for the resumption of the season.
Mr Mcdonald remains hopeful rugby will resume in the coming summer but said the first priority of the sport had to remain that any decisions taken were safe and responsible.
He said: “Hopefully we will go ahead in the summer, but we take our lead from Premiership Rugby who are in constant contact with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
“It’s been made very clear that the department are very keen for sport to resume, because it is so important in many ways.
“However, it has to be done in a safe and appropriate way.
“Plan A is to complete the season over the summer, but the number one priority is health and what happens with sport must not affect that.”
Mr Mcdonald said that while players remain confined to training from their homes at the moment, the club are supporting them in doing that.
And there might be a possibility in the near future of players being allowed back to the club’s base at Farleigh House in small groups to step up their training.
He also said the players were desperate to get back to playing.
He said: “Some of them have almost got their own high performance centres at home now.
“The idea is for them to maintain their base level of fitness so that when rugby comes back they can get back into strength and conditioning and then contact training, although we have to be mindful of safety in doing that. The players are embracing it, they’re athletes and they want to be play and be in shape.
“They’re really keen to start playing games again.”
However, Mr Mcdonald said it was not just the players who are keen to see rugby come back to the Rec.
He said supporters were equally keen to return to games but he was full of praise for all at the club and the supporters for the way they have reacted to the current situation.
He said: “Our supporters have been brilliant in terms of their understanding with what the club has done and their recognition of the situation we are in.
“It’s been important for us to realise that these are not just the people who cheer us on in the stands, they are people who are out there on the front line. When rugby does come back, we want to make sure we do something for them - it would be great to recognise them.
“The staff at the club have also been selfless and fantastic, they’ve been putting other people first and have also really been looking out for each other, the club and the community.”