LUCTONIANS are confident that they have done enough to retain their National League Two North spot next season after the campaign was ended five games early.
The Rugby Football Union announced this week that the 2019/20 season will be halted due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, other than the Premiership.
A statement said: “We are working through the implications of ending the season early and have instigated a thorough process to ensure fair and balanced outcomes for the game.
“We will communicate these outcomes by the middle of April. While we would like to provide all the answers now, we need some time to get it right for the best interests of the game.”
In the current table Luctonians sit one point above the relegation places after a tough run off games.
Head coach Ryan Watkins feels that the decision to end the season is the right one and is confident his side have done enough to retain their league place.
“I think it’s sensible really and there are more important things than playing games of rugby,” said Watkins.
“We still don’t really know how it is going to work. Quite a few years ago when there was Foot-and-mouth disease they still relegated and promoted teams.
“Whether they will do that we don’t know and we will expect to hear in the next few weeks.
“We should be okay if they calculate the remaining games in which we should have picked up points against teams we have already beaten.
“To be honest I can’t think of one way that we would go down.We have got Scunthorpe (bottom side) and Preston Grasshoppers (second bottom) to play who we previously beat and Tynedale and Huddersfield.
“From them games I could see us getting 15 points. It’s a shame from that point of view we couldn’t finish the season.
“It was similar before Christmas where we came through really strongly and had a good run, it was another period of those games.”
Watkins is now urging the population to listen to Government advice to self-isolate so rugby can resume for pre-season training in August.
“There’s little we can do now but fingers crossed we can get back at it in August,” added Watkins.
“The first thing will be to get people back to work and then crowd gatherings happening.
“Fingers crossed people listen to advice and stay at home and then we can get playing rugby again as soon as possible.”
Hereford RFC have played their last game under head coach Sean Lynn who is retiring from his role at the club.
They were hoping for a positive end to the season following the flood damage which stopped them training last month.
“We changed all our fixtures during the flood or reversed them and I was looking forward to the five home games left,” said president Spencer Goodall.
“We were hoping to make some money to help which has now been suddenly taken away.
“Our home form had been very good, but we didn’t return from the floods very well as the lads hadn’t been training and preparing together.
“We’ve had a good season and would have probably finished fourth and we can’t complain about that, we’ve got a good bunch of local lads.”
