West of Scotland hoping for friendly action after rugby season is scrapped

It had been hoped to resume playing in January with a revamped regional structure replacing the normal national competition format.

But even that has been now been scrapped who announced last week there will be no competitive club or school rugby all this season.

West of Scotland president Donald Malone said the club was disappointed, but not surprised, by the news.

He said: “We realigned to start in January but you just need to look around and realise that there’s no rugby going to get played in January.

“Whilst that’s the competitive season scrapped we’ve got to remain positive that we might get some kind of friendly rugby in March or April if we can get on top of the virus; we can maybe salvage something from the season right across the age groups.

“You’re probably looking down at Anniesland and we’ve got Allan Glen’s close by, there’s Accies and GHK and we were due to play Hillhead/Jordanhill anyway.

“We continue to train across the age groups. The current restrictions make that difficult because of the social distancing and numbers per pitch.

“But I’ve got to take my hat off to the coaches right across the club, most of whom are volunteers, who still come out in all sorts of weather trying to do their best with what they can and the limitations.

“The atmosphere’s still great, it’s just really frustrating that we can’t play any rugby.”

Like most clubs, West have also suffered greatly off the pitch as well as on it.

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LSO