No rugby for over 5 months now but an unbelievable amount of work is going on behind the scenes.

We were in another RFL meeting on Thursday and irrespective of us entering the 125-cup the COVID protocols are not going away.

In terms of the cup competition, as more teams have decided not to enter the proposal has been pushed back until November and the prize money per team has increased.

At one point we thought it was going to cost the club money but it now looks a favourable financial deal. We have had some more conversations with BAE Systems, who have been fantastic, and it now looks likely that they will be able to provide testing for the squad.

We hope this will further cement our strong relationship with them brokered through our community sponsorship deal.

There is still the possibility that the RFL will pull the plug on the competition and I think we will get a firm decision on that this week.

Either way we have been looking ahead to next season in terms of recruitment. It is fair to say that there have been some high profile signings in League One, including our own Shaun Lunt, but we still believe if we can retain the majority of last season’s squad and add a little bit of quality we will be well placed for a promotion push. Players Director, Andy Gaffney, has been working tirelessly over the last couple of weeks and he joined myself and Paul Crarey recently putting our recruitment plans in place against our agreed budget.

It is fair to say we will keep a little back and could again tap in to the 1875 club fund if we need to make a mid-season signing or two. However, we strongly believe that our youngsters that have come through our systems have the ability to make their mark next year. At the RFL meeting there were questions around Ottawa’s participation and it is fair to say that there is a little nervousness from clubs around their ability to fulfil fixtures in light of the COVID pandemic and restrictions on foreign travel. We were assured that they will make the starting line-up with contingency plans in place to deal with any further restrictions. They will obviously be a force and have begun their recruitment drive, mainly picking up Championship standard players.