As I alluded to last week, the situation keeps changing with regards to the COVID-19 outbreak.

From the club’s perspective, we are now in some sort of lockdown. Obviously, the matches have been suspended officially until early April but we know that the initial period will be extended.

Given that the government have announced an isolation period for 12 weeks for the most vulnerable, we can’t expect to be playing before then unless the situation dramatically improves.

Our training has now ceased and our commercial and secretarial support is working from home. The community team are keen to help in any way that is practical but they also must observe government guidance.

To be fair to the government, they have announced a whole raft of help for businesses including deferral of taxes, grants from local government, interest-free loans and an offer to pay 80 per cent of salaries.

I don’t know what more they could have done and they should be applauded. Those decisions have saved many businesses, including many rugby league clubs.

The aim is that people don’t lose jobs and businesses don’t go under so that when we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel we can almost instantly switch the economy back on.

The Rugby Football League has also been getting some figures from the clubs so that they can present the whole game impact and lobby for a central distribution.

Board meetings are going to have to be cancelled, so it is good that we can stay in touch through modern technology. Our most pressing actions are that we sort out the financial packages available from government so that our short term future is secured.

All the players and coaching staff have been very supportive and there hasn’t been a murmur of discontent.

There have been offers to reduce salaries but the key aim from the government is that workers retain their wages so that there is as little personal suffering as possible. For the immediate future it is our intention that we honour our agreements.

Commercially, lots of businesses are suffering but some will be actually be booming so there will be some opportunities to try to court those businesses whilst staying mindful of the difficult situation.

The government help with wages will help the club but we have many other fixed costs. There is little doubt that the club will suffer financially and we have had offers of help from our fans. It is reassuring that our fantastic fans recognise the plight of the club.

We plan to do some virtual ticketing so fans can commit financially to what they would have spent following the team, the auxiliary branch would welcome new lottery members, the supporters trust would welcome 200 Club members and the 1875 Club is still committed to team strengthening when we get back on the field.

The message from the club is stay safe and strictly follow the guidelines; doing so will reduce any shutdown period so that we can more quickly get back to a semblance of normality with Sundays your weekly rugby league fix.