By David Roberts
Pontypool’s plans to reach the Indigo Group Premiership may have been scuppered by the coronavirus crisis, but they have pledged to honour all contracts with players through to the end of the season.
The reigning champions of the Specsavers Championship, they led the table by five points from Bargoed when the WRU called an end to the season and ruled there would be no promotion or relegation.
At that stage Pooler were unbeaten in 16 games and had extended their unbeaten run in the league to 62 matches.
Now they are revising their plans for next season, but remain totally committed to the players who had taken them to the brink of a possible return to the Premiership for the first time since 2013.
“We’ve taken the decision to honour all playing and coaching contracts until the end of the 2019/20 season because quite frankly, through no fault of their own, all of the hard work of given by these people was decimated in the blink of an eye,” explained Pontypool chief executive Ben Jeffreys in an update to suppporters.
“It didn’t sit right with us, the prospect of terminating those contracts, when so many people had worked so hard and were achieving so much to continue to take this club forward.
“We will continue to do this throughout the summer as well as continuing to make preparations with our recruitment for next season, doing that on the assumption rugby will resume in 2020.
“Clearly, if it becomes likely in the weeks and months ahead that rugby will not resume this year then we will have to review that decision as we cannot continue to make such commitments in terms of heavy expenditure when no rugby is being played and while we are receiving no income.
“It’s been a huge challenge for us and we budget for almost every possibility, but we couldn’t have factored in our season and rugby stopping for the foreseeable future.
“We projected being a Premiership team next season and projected certain levels of income from the Welsh Rugby Union, gate receipts, season tickets and sponsorship, but at the moment all that is totally up in the air.
“While we are going to continue to look after our staff and players, we will of course monitor this in the weeks and months ahead to ensure that the club remains stable throughout this crisis.”
Having won the Championship title for the last three years, during which time they only lost one match, their hopes of regaining their Premiership status were dashed when they lost in a play-off game with Llanelli at the end of last season.
The rules changed for the 2019-20 campaign, with the winners of the title gaining automatic promotion. There were 10 games left to play in the season.
“We are still devastated that this has happened, but we did support the Welsh Rugby Union at the time and continue to support them,” added Jeffreys.
“It was the right decision to cancel the season and now it is incumbent on us as a management to deal with situations such as this in the right way and at the appropriate time. We’ve done a number of things to steady the ship here at the club while we face such an uncertain future.”
The lack of income from the season shut-down, as well as the loss of projected income if the club had reached the Premiership, means plans to upgrade Pontypool Park are likely to be put on hold for a while.
“We are doing everything possible to ensure that this club remains stable, both now and in the long-term future,” said Jeffreys.
“We will do whatever it takes to make sure that the togetherness and unity that we’ve all worked so hard to create over the last few years is not only protected but is in a position to grow in the years ahead.
“We have not taken any decision as to whether to progress with the development of Pontypool Park as is planned but we will keep fans informed of that and any other developments as they arise.”
