UPDATED: Friday March 13, 2020 @ 1440
Last night the Carolinas Geographic Rugby Union imposed at least a two-week ban on playing any matches due to the Coronavirus scare. To read their release, please follow this link.
UPDATE: This suspension has been increased to 30 days which makes the earliest possible date for returning to play as April 18, 2020. The following notes have been amended to take this into account.
While disappointing, the Clayton Rugby Football Club understands the reasoning behind the decision. Our goal is to do what is best for our club, members, and community so we fully support this choice. The cancellations are in line with best practices and recommendations made by other sporting bodies throughout the United States and around the world. As things progress we will continue to educate ourselves and learn more about the Coronavirus and COVID-19.
Club matches for the next 30 days have been cancelled with the weekend of April 18th as the earliest possible date for returning to play. Due to where we are at in the season it is unlikely that we will rescheduled the matches that have been cancelled. Our 1st XV has two games remaining on their schedule (both of which have now been cancelled) and our 2nds have three matches left to play (all of which have now been cancelled). In all likelihood our 2019/2020 XVs season has come to an end.
With this in mind, our Board of Directors has decided to also cancel any practices. In the interim, we are going to proceed with Saturday morning touch rugby sessions starting on March 21st and team building activities. We are also going to have Thursday night social gatherings in order to keep the group together.
The ban on games will also affect our in house youth flag rugby program that was scheduled to kick off on March 28th. As of right now we’re going to delay the start of the program until April 18th. We don’t foresee any issues as of yet with our annual CottonTown 7s tournament in July. All preparations are moving forward as planned. We also expect our practice sessions for 7s season to proceed in mid-May.
I pray that we work our way through all of this, we return to play in a timely manner, and that no one in our community are negatively impacted by the Coronavirus. We are looking at some operational changes to not only address the current situation, but also mitigate player and fan cross-contamination in the future. We appreciate everyone’s patience and support during this time. We look forward to returning to rugby activity as soon as possible.
Thanks for your time.
Ted Hardy, President
Clayton Rugby Football Club
