Amateur RU: Fifth league postponement for Huddersfield

Feb 1 2010 by David Lockwood, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

HUDDERSFIELD Rugby Union Club frustrations continued to mount as they suffered their fifth League postponement on Saturday, and sixth in total when including the annual friendly with the YMCA over Christmas.

An RFU referee ruled the Lockwood Park pitch unfit and unsafe because of several frozen areas of the field and left Director of rugby Mark Sowerby and his men kicking their heels once more.

They have now played just one game of any description (last week’s League defeat at Fylde) since December 12, and are building up such a backlog of games that the season has already been extended until the middle of May – and that is assuming there are no further cancellations along the way.

And as well as the unwelcome lengthy lay-off for the players, the club are also feeling the effects of the winter freeze, with no income generated by first team home games, since they entertained Hull way back on December 5.

“Games in hand are okay, but they are not as good as having points on the board,” said Sowerby, who is desperately trying to keep his squad’s spirits up.

“They trained well this week are we were all set and raring to go on Saturday. I was able to put out about as strong a side as we could, and the boys were all looking forward to the clash, particularly given it was against Hull Ionians, who we felt we owed one after they humbled us at their place earlier in the season.

“We really wanted to go for that win, which in turn would have given us some confidence going into the re-arranged home game against Broadstreet next Saturday, which is another massive must-win game for us.