BRADFORD & Bingley RFC are bottom of North One East, with 13 defeats out of 13, and a miserable minus three points to their name.

But despite their nightmare start, and being clearly out of their depth in this division with a very inexperienced squad, they won’t be relegated, thanks to a league re-structure coming in next year.

Head coach Hugh Gumbs had some interesting views on that though, insisting dropping down might not have been the worst thing for the club.

He explained: “Nobody’s getting relegated, it’s just promotions, but sometimes it can be good to go down.

“It can make you stronger, and can effectively mean you end up playing at a level the club is comfortable with.

“You have to work out what level you need to be at, both from a playing side and financially.

“There’s no point going bankrupt at a level you can’t afford.

“I look at the example of my old club Pontefract. They had to go down to find their feet again really, but now they’re looking good to potentially come up from Yorkshire One, with a real focus on local players, and they’re stronger for it.”

Gumbs has big concerns about the wider game, saying: “Even though I wouldn’t have minded us going down, it will be good to see what this restructure brings instead.

“Something needs to happen, because the leagues are not in as strong a position as they were before Covid, a lot of which is down to a shortfall of players, who are tending to prioritise family, careers and holidays now as they get into their late 20s and 30s.

“The game is struggling, and you only have to look at senior clubs higher up than us, like Harrogate, Otley and Wharfedale, who can’t even really get a second team out this season.

“Here at Bradford & Bingley, it’s about us having a short-term, mid-term, and long-term strategy, which is useful to have at all clubs, as it helps you push forward and can provide stability for the future.”

Here in the now, and the Bees still have a league season to complete, with their last game before Christmas seeing them visit home specialists Pocklington in North One East this afternoon.

Gumbs said: “It’s listed as being at home on the Yorkshire RFU website, but it’s actually away.

“Because we pulled out of our game with them in September, we have to go back there, and have forfeited our right to face them at home, with just this one match against them this season now.

“Given that we were deducted five points for not fulfilling that fixture too, it certainly wasn’t of any benefit to us, making that decision.

“It would be so easy not to put a team out still, with all the young lads we’ve got, but we are, so that’s a positive, and the morale in the camp is really good, which is credit to the players.

“It will be tough again this weekend, as Pocklington are a decent side, particularly at home, where they gave (leaders) Driffield a good game last Saturday.

“They’ve brought in a number of top players from overseas, but for us, we’ve just got to build on what we’ve been doing.

“We’re progressively getting more experience with each game and we’ve been in plenty of them this season, we’ve just not had the consistency to keep the performance up for long enough.”