We asked our Chairman Hugh James to give us his thoughts on 2020 and beyond:
I hope you have all had a good Christmas, a lot different to years gone by with
us all missing our Boxing Day drinks in the Clubhouse.
I would like to start my reflection on the past year by asking you all to pause
and remember the members of our rugby family who are no longer with us. Our
thoughts go to all their families in what has been an incredibly difficult year.
Normally at this time of the year I would be reflecting on how the season is
going, however this year is a little bit different and I will instead be
reflecting on how last season ended. As I’ve mentioned before, our last game of
LAST season (this is quite confusing to write about), saw us beat top of the
league Canton. I thought it really indicated where we were going as a club and I
was excited about what we were achieving on the field and off. This reflected
the hard work our senior coaches Gar, Andy and team manager Clinton have put in,
I know they were all disappointed to have the season cut short.
The Junior and Mini section also had strong performances last season. A lot of
hard work has gone into supporting the Junior and Mini section by coaches and
parents and I am really excited to see what they do next. I’d like to thank all
of the coaches and everyone else involved in running the Mini and Junior Section
for their continued support and enthusiasm.
Throughout the summer (and currently) all of our coaches have been working hard
to make sure that all of our players stay safe, while continuing to develop
their skills and fitness. This has been a difficult job with the ever changing
guidelines, so a big thanks to them all for their commitment.
As we all know last season was cut short due to the pandemic and our community
being put into lockdown. Even though we were in lockdown, this didn’t stop our
rugby community spirit:
* Our groundsmen used their daily exercise to cut the pitch,
* Our scoreboard was revamped by the Hearne family,
* Our rugby members helped in the local community by gardening and delivering
parcels,
* We raised over £1000 for Llanharan Community Development Project by walking,
running, cycling and swimming the coast of Wales,
* We even managed to acquire a new set of posts for the Dairy with thanks to our
main sponsor Excell.
I want to say a big thank you to our Committee who managed to work quickly to
ensure that we could adhere to guidelines. A thank you also has to go to Sue and
her bar staff who had to work in a very different way this year, and to you all
who came down for drinks over the past year and adhered to our new system.
Looking forward to 2021, it’s looking very unlikely that we will play any rugby
this season with the current guidelines in place. If the guidelines were to
change I am confident that our players and coaches are ready to hit the ground
running.
I’ll end this reflection by saying “bring on next season”; I know the Club is in
a great position not only on the field but off the field too. We are all raring
to go and play some great rugby and enjoy the social side of rugby again (even
if it doesn’t look like normal).
Happy New Year to you all.
Hugh James
Chairman Llanharan RFC
