Long wait for roller-coaster ride to continue at LSH

Mar 12 2008 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post

THE Liverpool St Helens roller-coaster continued with a devastating display against Middlesbrough.

The 40-14 win, mainly inspired by last summer’s new recruits Mark Dickinson and Ashley Worsfold, keeps the Moss Laner’s hopes of North One survival alive.

With just three games to go it is all to play for as LSH scrap it out with Darlington, Altrincham Kersal and Penrith for the one safe place. And so the ride continues – or rather it doesn’t – as the next league fixture is not for three weeks, at Westoe at the end of March. There is then another two week gap until the remaining games against Hull and Cleckheaton. In a situation faced by all the clubs in North One, the climax to the season, with important games at stake affecting the very future of some clubs, is played out with three games over a six week period. Coaches have the unenviable task of maintaining match fitness amongst their squads while LSH fans, now in early March, have just one more home game to look forward to.

The answer is simple. Increase the number of competing teams from 12 to 14. However as Geoff Lightfoot disclosed in last week’s Daily Post, the response from the RFU hierarchy has not been encouraging. The comment from the RFU Competitions Director that until they have sorted the top, level five “will just have to be patient” is simply not good enough.

Players want to play rugby on Saturdays and clubs need competitive fixtures to fill their clubhouses and survive. There was no better example of this last weekend than at Waterloo, where their 2nd XV generously lent a depleted LSH 2nd XV two props to enable the Bateman Premier game to go ahead.