The community rugby season starts next week and it’s game on, the WRU says, but no club in Wales will face any penalty for calling a match off over the state of its pitch.
The union’s Community Game Board met this week to weigh up what the summer’s weather has done to pitches around the country, and the safety concerns that come with it, days before the first fixtures.
After taking Met Office advice, sounding out other governing bodies around the UK and running its own checks at selected Welsh clubs, the board agreed unanimously that games can go ahead where both sides and the referee agree it is safe.
The safety valve is just as important as the green light. Any club can reschedule a fixture without sanction by citing pitch conditions on the day, or a lack of contact training in the build-up, a provision in place until at least Sunday 13 September, when the advice will be reviewed.
The union says it has also taken medical advice to produce guidance for clubs on risk assessment and injury prevention, alongside practical advice on checking pitches and on artificial surfaces.
‘Game on’, with one caveat
“The Community Game Board has made the sensible decision, reflecting on all the information available to us, to allow clubs to play where it is safe to do so,” said WRU community director Geraint John.
“We are saying to our players and our clubs that it is very much ‘game on’ in Wales, but with the caveat that player safety and welfare must be an absolute priority when the decision is made at a local level.”
Clubs and referees, he said, are “entirely free to make the call to reschedule on safety grounds if there are any doubts whatsoever”.
The stakes for the union are clear from John’s own words: player registrations have hit an all-time high, and the board wanted to avoid “the disappointment of having to cancel all community fixtures” while trusting “those on the ground, who know their teams, their players and the conditions around their pitches best”.
The letter to clubs spells out how it works. If the two teams cannot agree the pitch is fit, the game is off, nobody is sanctioned, and the fixture moves to the next available date.
If both teams want to play but the referee rules the pitch unsuitable, the referee’s decision stands, and the union has urged clubs to respect the official making it.
Clubs are urged to talk to each other early to avoid wasted journeys, and can reverse a fixture to the other club’s ground by mutual agreement, though nothing obliges them to.
The board has also gone beyond its own regulations on one point: a club that does not feel ready for contact after a disrupted pre-season can have the game moved, no questions asked, with player welfare cited as the priority.
For clubs across Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire, the first whistles of the season sound next weekend. Whether each game goes ahead is now, deliberately, a local call.
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