Kentish Express Ashford & District
Rugby ready to bounce back
Medway are looking forward to a challenging new year on the field.
With the regular season cancelled, London 1 South Medway have been placed in a six-team group of clubs from the south east, and all of their opponents are ranked a level above. Head coach Taff Gwilliam is eager to get back to action when it’s safe to do so - senior training was cancelled when Kent and Medway were put in Tier 3 restrictions - and feels the Local Cluster League will be a great experience for his young team, ahead of what they hope will be a return to normal service for the 2021/22 campaign.
Gwilliam accepts some of the parts of the game that make rugby what it is, including mauls and scrums, will be excluded when action gets back under way at a local level, but anything is better than nothing right now. He said: “It is going to be a great test and we are looking forward to it.
“We have got a very young squad, with a couple of lads who have joined us and those lads who have come through our development we are really pleased with. It is exciting to have such a young squad. We can give experience to younger players and develop them quickly.
“This will keep the game going and give the players some competition before hopefully we go back to something like normal next season, especially now that the vaccination programme has started.” Rugby has suffered more than most, by the nature of the sport.
It’s been a long wait for some competitive action and Gwilliam said: “It has been frustrating, as it has been for everyone, and from a coaching point of view it is concerning about how much damage Covid has done for the game as a whole.
“It is a physical contact game and contact has been banned virtually since March 23. Other sports have been allowed to continue because there is less contact. Until we return we don’t know how many players we have potentially lost to other sports, which is a general concern, and there is also the loss of revenue.”