Relegated West Park in battle to keep top players

Apr 16 2008 by Our Correspondent, Liverpool Daily Post

AFTER weeks of speculation West Park finally saw the last nail of their coffin driven in at Leicester Lions when they suffered their heaviest defeat for sometime losing 55-20.

With Macclesfield winning, the result means that the Merseysiders are finally destined to play in North One next season.

Not everyone at Red Rocks will be sorry.

For sometime it has been increasingly apparent that the Club needs to regroup and come to realistic terms with their demise.

They have a new and inexperienced management with a caretaker coach Chris Chudleigh in charge and former Orrell stand-off Martin Strett as the rugby manager.

Since ex-Army Captain Chris Chudleigh took over with the departure of Martin Jones the side has not won a game.

Now for the first time Martin Strett finds himself in a position knowing what might lie in wait for next season at least well aware that his side will no longer be in the national leagues.

The impact of all this on the player drain could be considerable and there is no doubt that the management will have their work cut out to keep the likes of quality players like skipper Stephen Briers and the ever improving number 8 Craig Smithson. There is a faction in the Club that may regard the drop as a blessing in disguise.

Certainly moving to North One should prove far less expensive than National 3 North and providing the club can foster and nurture the game at grass roots, then there could be better light at the end of the tunnel.

Undoubtedly this coming Saturday may be a very sad time for those members who have strived so hard in the past to achieve National status. If the Club can recover quickly and that is the big question, then they will have learned a lot from their experiences in recent years.