How Doncaster Knights have been left to fly the flag for Yorkshire

That is not just because coronavirus has brought the sport to a shuddering halt here, across the country and all around the globe.

When this pandemic is over, and some sort of normality returns, rugby will resume. There is no doubting that.

However, whether the global virus had struck or not, the sport was already struggling in the Broad Acres and it is destined to continue to struggle.

Yorkshire has seen two clubs reach the Premiership in the professional era yet, worryingly, neither of those will even grace the second tier when the 2020-21 campaign begins.

In the case of Yorkshire Carnegie, it would surprise many if they are even in existence following relegation into National League One where they are also set to be the county’s only representative.

If they do manage to stay afloat they need only cast a glance at Rotherham Titans – the other club who less briefly reached the zenith of domestic rugby – to be reminded of what can happen when they do fall.

As recently as April 2018, Rotherham were still a Championship club yet, after Friday’s RFU ruling, they are now preparing for life in National Two North.

Two relegations in three years is devastating for the South Yorkshire club who spent two seasons in the Premiership in the early 2000s.

They were only four points adrift of safety with five games still to play and 25 points up for grabs when Covid-19 saw the current season abandoned.

However, they were demoted after the RFU applied its ‘best playing record’ formula to derive final tables last Friday.

They have not been as low as the fourth tier since 1996 and it is hard to envisage them ever returning as high as the Championship again.

Still, at least in long-time chairman Nick Cragg, they have a dedicated owner who will do his utmost to bring some semblance of stability when the time comes.

It is hard to see whether there is anyone left at Carnegie able to offer such support, or even if there is a desire to.

After last year’s financial mess, which saw their entire squad leave, left them in a CVA and needing to resurrect as a part-time operation, they failed to win a single game all season.

Played 20, lost 20. And most of them by a considerable margin.

Their slide from those halcyon days as Leeds Tykes taking on the might of Leicester Tigers, Wasps and Gloucester in the Premiership, Toulouse in the Heineken Cup and slaying Bath at Twickenham, to this sorry state has been well-documented but does not get any easier to stomach.

Director of rugby Phil Davies, who led them in their peak, returned in January to try and reignite the club. He insists he will stay on at Carnegie and they will revert back to the name of Leeds to try and foster some of that previous spirit and support, but it seems too little too late.

They will move out of Headingley and look to start up elsewhere but a concern for many of the Carnegie hierarchy has always been that if they slipped as far as they now have, would there be any appetite for a revival?

They have some loyal, ardent fans but not the history and close-knit feel of more traditional clubs such as Rotherham and Doncaster Knights; with no RFU funding in National One, will they just disappear?

Doncaster, then, remain as the county’s sole name in the Championship and they, like everyone else in that competition, have their own issues given the way the RFU drastically reduced their financial input for next season.

That damaging blow came even before Covid-19 swung its savage hit; with Saracens coming down, reaching the Premiership has never been more difficult.

Doncaster, for their part, have already said their main concern is surviving in the Championship and waiting to see if – and it is a big if – that landscape ever alters.

But below this level, there are so many examples of salutary lessons. It was not long ago that Otley were in the second tier of English rugby.

Under Peter Clegg, they could attract players like Dave Scully and Dan Hyde and proved a competitive force as a semi-professional club. When that division became a full-time professional competition, they were relegated in 2009.

They were relegated again on Friday. Into North Premier. The fifth level of domestic rugby.

Wakefield were not as lucky, They went bust in 2004, a prescient sign perhaps of how any form of professional rugby might not be sustainable.

The sport turned professional in 1995 but it would be no surprise now if, outside of the Premiership, it started reverting closer and closer to its original amateur status.

The main point is that all clubs survive and that is imperative in the weeks, months and years ahead, especially if this county of almost five million people wants to see the next Mike Tindall, Brian Moore, Peter Winterbottom or Danny Care play for England.

Yes, things look dismal today for rugby in the county – whose union celebrated its 150th anniversary last year – but hopefully it will soon bloom again perhaps as a different flower entirely.

*Knights’ 2020/21 squad as it stands: Andrew Foster, Kyle Evans, Matt Smith, Reiss Cullen, Sam Olver (all entering second year of contract); Robin Hislop (retained on new two-year deal); Charlie Foley, Howard Packman, Will Holling, Matt Challinor, Sam Pocklington (retained on new one-year deals); James Kane (new signing, one-year deal).