Barrow Raiders chairman Steve Neale writes a weekly column for The Mail. This week, he discusses the postponed Cumbrian derby with Workington Town and the future of rugby league as a whole.

We were massively disappointed that our top of the table clash with Workington was postponed.

We had managed to stay relatively Covid-free in camp and we had previously not recorded a single positive on site before last week, but the signs were ominous when we received a positive test result from a couple before they set off for training and then another couple on site.

This was then compounded with more overnight and after contact analysis our whole squad had been ripped apart. Unfortunately, these are the times we live in, and we were promised a season of some disruption.

I feel for Workington as they could have expected a bumper crowd; hopefully we can look at the calendar and find an alternative date when things have settled down.

This week for the visit of Hunslet presents challenges with squad availability but we are determined to raise a side as we feel we owe it to our sponsors and supporters. We need the supporters to come out in force and back the players; some of them are literally putting their bodies on the line, returning from injury ahead of time.

Off the field, I was in a meeting with the RFL on Friday last week and have follow-up meetings twice more this week. It is fair to say that a big restructure is on the cards, but for now I am not to leak the detail.

For our club, the key component is that the drawbridge is not lifted and the route to the top remains. Other countries like the USA and Australia don’t seem to worry about promotion and relegation but that sense of jeopardy is vital in British sport.

We have made ourselves self-sustainable, which will be to our advantage, but sometimes you must think about the whole sport when reaching decisions. With funding being reduced across the game there are inevitably going to be some tough decisions and unpopular outcomes but for me the chopping and changing of structures does the sport no good.

Look at the English Premier League and their great strength is their consistency. They would never abandon relegation or promotion mid-season so perhaps we should take notice of what works well.

From a Barrow Raiders perspective nothing will change as long as that drawbridge remains down. We are focussing on a two-fold strategy of improving both the team and the facilities. All the income streams, the community engagement, the events, the crowd increasing strategies are all designed to feed into that improvement.

We need to set realistic timescales.

If we put all our resources into the team then we could be denied promotion because the minimum facilities standards have not been reached. Focus purely on facilities and then the team suffers, and support dwindles.

There is no 'sugar daddy' at the club, just an incredibly hard-working bunch of staff and volunteers who are driving forward with momentum.

We have fantastic support of our fans and sponsors and just need to know that the governing bodies of the game and the town – ie the RFL and local council – support our ambitions.