Promotion twice in 3 years is a fantastic achievement and congratulations to all involved, players, coaches and administration. Staying up will be difficult but is well within our means. Most certainly we will need to strengthen the squad, however the vast majority of the the squad with further development are capable of playing in North Prem. If we stay relatively injury free, strengthen in the right areas and perhaps most importantly the players commit to what this step up in league will demand we will be ok.
Next season we will only have 2 other teams from Yorkshire in our league (Sandal & Otley, yes Otley, who would have thought that 3 years ago with I believe 4 levels between us) and 9 trips across the Pennines. These will involve all day trips with early starts and late returns, how are wives and girlfriends going to accept that. Putting rugby ahead of personal life for 8 months of the year is a big ask. Finding the balance and communicating availability and honouring there commitment will be key. The powers that be I understand are addressing all this, but player buy in to what the club is doing is paramount.
We will also now be playing rugby at one level below Rotherham and Hull Ionians, if you add Otley to this list these are all team that have often approached our key players. Key players that have remained loyal to York and are now enjoying all fruits of their and the clubs hard work and ambitions.
Maybe just maybe some of these teams players may want to be part of what we have built and are looking to achieve. After all we are at the centre of Yorkshire and are arguably the county’s capital.
I was asked today did we want to be promoted, to right we do, the vast majority at the club share my view, those running the team certainly do, 100% the players did. If more members become further involved more closely then let’s see where we can go. As a club in the early 80’s we got to then level 5, we couldn’t sustain those heady heights. Let’s get it right this time.
