IT is a great pleasure as always to welcome all those involved with Bishop’s Stortford to Old Bath Road for this afternoon's National One fixture.

They’re a great club who’ve kicked our butts a few times and we’ve had terrific games against them – Stortford have got good depth, a great youth section and are a proper rugby club at the heart of its community.

They’re always very welcoming, well supported, well run, John Allanson speaks a lot of sense about rugby and so we look forward to seeing them, but we know we’ve got a hard National One game.

This is the stand-out league in English rugby and the best-kept secret in world sport – you get terrific sides playing great stuff, you’re up close to the physical competition and most clubs it costs only £15 to watch it.

For anyone coming up to OBR they’re going to get entertained, and there’s also the Titans and Bishop’s Stortford Blues who have had some terrific battles in the past – we’ve been on the wrong end quite frequently!

Our Colts play in the second round of the National Cup at Beaconsfield tomorrow and the switch to training two nights a week seems to be working.

We’ve got to equalise in comparison to what the private school kids get – I will keep stressing it’s not anti-private school – but its about combatting the fact the state schools aren’t doing as much as they used to.

So, if a kid wants to play, they need to go to a club and in turn that club needs to give them a lot of time to enable them to develop the skills so they can compete with others who have come through a better programme.

That’s what we’re trying to do and we’ll keep going in this direction through the whole of the youth section so kids who want to play this fantastic game can do that – but private school lads are welcome as well!

We are extremely grateful to today’s matchday sponsor, Duncan Lynch Precision Tools Ltd.
They have been at the heart of the Rams’ project and Andy is legendary – I don’t know how the man has the energy to do what he does.

He runs a business, Chairs Berkshire RFU, is the south-east representative for National League Rugby in constant contact with Bill Sweeney, John Inverdale, builds stands, gantries, sorts out new 600 sq m of concrete to put a temporary indoor building with an AGP on – what can’t he do?!

At 64 years young he keeps going and this club is very lucky to have him – people don’t realise how fortunate they are to have Andy around leading things.

In the past week Jersey look set to be the fourth professional club to go into liquidation in the past year and it’s sad news for everyone associated with them because they’re nice people.

But if you start throwing money around to win leagues, you’ve got to bear the consequences when it runs out.

It’s a fact of life and if you spend excessively and continually above your means then eventually, you’ll go bust.

They won the Championship last year and the playing budget is not small – it now transpires one they couldn’t afford.

I hope the RFU don’t bail them out because if they do, that money could have gone to someone else who is doing a lot more for the local community – Bishop’s Stortford, Rams and plenty more – and I don’t see any reason an island with a lot of tax exiles should benefit. I have no sympathy.

Our attendances have been excellent so far and people keep coming back for a reason – they see great rugby for a small payment.

Equally, those who go away, there’s a group of them, the boys will generally turn it on and they’ll visit great clubs with great supporters.

It’s a wonderful way to spend a Saturday afternoon and I think more and more people are discovering Rams, which is a credit to the club and all the hard work which goes in from the Board, the players, the volunteers – it’s nice there’s a success story in English rugby when there’s so much bad news.