Counties 1 Cumbria got off to a disappointing start with news that Silloth has pulled out of the competition.
They were due to play at Workington in their opening fixture but were unable to field enough players.
Club official Phil Scott said: “It’s been difficult with numbers in pre-season. We have a number of players who also play rugby league so training twice a week for that with their clubs, playing on a Friday usually, has left little time for training with us.
“Gareth Nicholson stepped back from being coach because there just wasn’t the commitment from players.
“Approaching the weekend we had ten or eleven players available to play Workington but two of them dropped out.
“We managed to get the game postponed and then asked 34 players in our WhatsApp group if they were committed and there were only eight who said yes.
“We haven’t folded or vanished off the scene. We will try and regroup, maybe pick up one or two games during the season and encourage lads to come down to play.
“The problem in Silloth is we don’t have the youth coming through. There aren’t the schools producing rugby players and we have to look outside which is always hard.
“Friday was a very sad day as far as Silloth rugby was concerned. Bobby Benson and I have done what we can to keep things going and to be honest I’m upset at what’s happened.”
One of the other opening games also went down as a walkover to St Benedict’s even though it was played – and Keswick 2nds actually won 21-14.
But because it was played with uncontested scrums the result was a 0-0 win for the non-offending team – in this case Benny’s.
Keswick were without front row forwards for their debut in the competition but that was a one-off because of circumstances on Saturday and they will be in action this weekend.
