COMMUNITY rugby league is set to see competitive games again as soon as May, and Queensbury have spent the last year getting ready.

As well as creating a girls’ set-up to add to their junior sides, plenty of off-field work has been taking place, from a second pitch, to advertising, to making plans for a proper clubhouse.

Club treasurer and junior coach Stuart Rubery said: “We’ve had to start again in a way. In autumn, we’d just set those girls’ teams up and got the juniors back to play two games.

“We were just thinking we were getting back to normal but it soon got stopped. I just hope on the whole that people return to the game, and haven’t found other things to do over the last year.

“Now we’ve been given dates (a return to training on March 29 and competitions from May 8), we can hopefully set out our training programmes from the end of the month.

“Having read up on the guidance, certainly for the first team, it looks as if we’re expected to have four weeks of training, a couple of weeks of friendlies, and then competitive games.

“A new team from Wakefield, Westgate Common, have already been in touch and asked to arrange a friendly with us, so they can judge where they’re at before entering the Yorkshire Men’s League.

“Our firsts have been a Premier Division team for a number of years, so it should be a good gauge for them.”

But on a less positive note, Rubery admitted: “People are looking at June as when all restrictions are lifted on life, but I can’t see it, I think some things will still be in place.

“Nottingham Outlaws are in our division, but can you go that far for a game? I just wonder how the YML will want the leagues to look.

“Would it be worth keeping the teams from Bradford, Leeds and Halifax in a league, and for example, teams from Hull in another?

“We’re still waiting for guidance from the YML and Yorkshire Juniors on how things are going to shape up for all our sides.”

Whatever the season looks like, Queensbury are in better shape now than this time a year ago.

Rubery explained: “We’ve put a rail round the main field to mark off the pitch, and we’ve got advertising board space around it now, which is a different stream of revenue for us.

“There is a second field at the club, and we’ve cut all the grass down, exposed the boundary of it and erected fencing.

“We’ve got some gaps in our junior age groups at the moment, but they will be full in a couple of years and they need somewhere to play.

“We’ve also got two new dugouts, one of which is done, and the other will be getting finished this weekend.

“We had to find something to do to fill our time in lockdown after all.

“The other big thing is the clubhouse. The building we have has been derelict for a while, but with a bit of luck, we can get that finished this year, with the help of that Rugby League World Cup funding that’s out there.”