The First Leg of the Semi-Final of the Premier National Trophy was rained-off at Brough Park today. The call-off came just before the scheduled start when it started raining once more and a heavy downpour rendered the track unridable.
No date has been fixed for restaging the tie with Monarchs due on their Southern tour next weekend. Newcastle have a full schedule for next month with Exeter and Arena Essex visiting and also the England Under-21 v Scotland Test Match scheduled. One possible date mentioned was Monday 26th July. Monday is Newcastle's change day and they have no fixture on the Sunday that week due to the the staging of the Premier League Pairs Championships at Newport that Newcastle and Edinburgh seem certain to be involved in.
The postponment will give Monarchs a chance to track a full team assuming that Kevin Little has recovered from his wrist injury and that a replacement for David McAllan is in place. It will also give Newcastle the chance to get Robert Eriksson fully fit from his broken collarbone.
The delay in completing the two legs of this tie is likely to cost Monarchs a 100 pound fine from the BSPA for going beyond the July 1st deadline.
Newcastle completed their Qualifying Group fixtures two months ago on 25th April. Monarchs finished their group matches on May 30th. The reason for this delay was down to the late start by Glasgow. Both Edinburgh and Newcastle have been twiddling their thumbs for weeks waiting first for the Southern Group to complete their fixtures, then for the BSPA to adjudicate on Neil Machin's half-crazed claim that Sheffield had qualified, and finally for the draw to be made.
The Southern Group was not completed until 13th June and the draw was not made until 15th June when the Sheffield claim was rejected.
This left the teams two weeks to complete home and away fixtures. This was not possible with the four team tournament dominating the fixtures. It would have been a real nightmare trying to reschedule fixtures involving four teams. With Monarchs off on a Southern tour next week it is likely to be late in July before the fixtures can be completed.
All this after allowing the Southern Group to drag on for weeks. The draw could also have been made some two weeks earlier since the only unresolved issue was whether Newport or Arena Essex would win the Southern Group.
Alex Harkess commented:
"It's not Newcastle's fault that the weather went against them. You cannot penalize them because it rained. It's ridiculous. All teams involved in the Semi-Finals were given just two weeks to complete them. This isn't feasible."
"Some clubs like ourselves have a southern tour starting next weekend. And you cannot cancel that at the last minute simply to fit in a Premier National Trophy fixture. It's the BSPA who maintain that southern tours must take precedence over everything else. Newcastle have waiting six weeks to race this Semi-Final simply because the BSPA allowed the southern section qualifying group to end one month behind everyone else. That is why this log jam of fixtures has now occurred."
"It's a bit late in the day to start criticizing teams for not completing their ties after giving them two weeks notice to race."
Even if the Brough Park meeting had escaped the rain, Monarchs were not prepared to run two meetings in a week to comply with the deadline having pencilled in Friday 9th July for the home leg.
"We'll just pay the fine. It's only 100 pounds which is neither here nor there."