WELSH RUGBY CLUB STOPPED FROM BEING PROMOTED BECAUSE TEAM KEEP CANCELLING MATCH

A Welsh rugby club has been forced to place their promotion bid on hold for five months, due to their opponents repeatedly failing to raise a side.

Forgeside RFC, who compete in Division 5 East, have just two more games to play to complete their season, both of which happen to be against bottom-of-the-table West Mon.

The season was initially supposed to finish in December, but a meeting between the two sides has been cancelled five times already. The latest cancellation happened last weekend.

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It's hoped the home and away meetings between the two sides can now be played next month, with Forgeside sitting third in the table, six points adrift of the promotion spots, which are currently held by Pontllanfraith and Hollybush.

However, should West Mon pull out once again, it's not clear what will happen next, and some fear Forgeside could actually be denied promotion as a result.

"We've still got to play them home and away," said Forgeside chairman Geraint Reynolds. "They called off the first game because they couldn't raise a team. They then rescheduled those games on top and they've been called off a few more times. It's been five games in total against us this season. Our league was meant to finish in December because it's so small and it looks like we're going to end up playing, if at all, the last few weekends of the season.

"They've played everyone else in the league home and away. It just seems to be us they're not playing."

Reynolds says the club, who won promotion to Division 5 last season, have sought assurances from the Welsh Rugby Union that their hopes of going up again won't be scuppered as a result of the situation, but claims he has so far not had definitive steer on what might happen next.

"Speaking to the union, they've said there's not an awful lot they can do apart from deduct points from West Mon, but they're on 0 points as it is. It's frustrating and it's struggling to get players to get motivated to play these games. I don't really know what can be done.

"If they do cancel against us again, the union would have to act. When I asked the union about it, their answer was very much, 'let's cross that bridge when we come to it'.

"You'd hope it won't cost us promotion. You'd hope the union would see sense because everybody else has played them and we haven't. It's not like we're trying to dodge the fixture. I would hope the union would either award us the fixture or deduct points off everyone else in the league. But I don't know what will happen."

The WRU have declined to comment on the matter, but it's understood that should West Mon fail to fulfill their fixtures, their results will be expunged from the record for the season.

West Mon have been approached for comment.

2024-04-25T13:07:01Z dg43tfdfdgfd