Cumberland ARL clubs have a crunch meeting tonight with the man driving through major changes to the community game.
Martin Coyd is the community board chairman and will be at the Seaton club to hear first hand what the West Cumbrian clubs think of the RFL plans.
“Not a lot” appears to be the general view locally, with the big complaint being they have just been ignored in earlier attempts to put their case.
Coyd, who lives in Kent but whose father hails from Cumbria, says he is coming north to listen and is to meet the Barrow clubs later in the week.
Coyd is probably best known in rugby league as the general manager of England Wheelchair Rugby League, having played a leading role in the development of wheelchair Rugby League over the last two decades.
Prior to that, he was one of the driving forces behind the recognition of Rugby League as a sport that could be played in the armed forces, having served for 18 years in the Royal Engineers.
A member of the RFL Roll of Honour, he was awarded the Spirit Of Rugby League Award in 2013 and made an OBE in the 2014 New Year’s Honours List for services to Rugby League.
He has established wheelchair and running Rugby League at the Medway Dragons in Kent, was chair of London RL for 10 years and is a long-serving member of the RFL Community Board.
As well as the meeting at Seaton, the National Conference League has called a clubs meeting for tonight.
In a statement the NCL said: “The RFL are relentlessly driving on with their plans for a National Community Rugby League in 2026.
“B ut the speed of the proposed changes, and the total disregard for the wishes and ambitions of the clubs who are being most affected by this ill-defined dash, are creating waves among the community game ranks that could reverberate around the sport for years to come.
“The playing structure for those in Cumbria is almost applied as an after-thought that certainly doesn’t present any clear understanding of the issues community clubs face or their ambitions and drivers in that part of the Rugby League world.”
