Danny Kirmond sorry to see Reserves paying the price

Wakefield Trinity’s Danny Kirmond admits he has “mixed emotions” about the decision to shelve this year’s Reserves League.
Danny Kirmond: Enjoyed bringing young players through.Danny Kirmond: Enjoyed bringing young players through.
Danny Kirmond: Enjoyed bringing young players through.

The Rugby Football League announced earlier this week that it would be cancelling the 2020 competition due to the impact of the coronavirus.

Fielding a reserve side had only just been reintroduced this year as a mandatory requirement for English-based Super League clubs, although Wakefield have run one for some time.

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Veteran second-row Kirmond has been assistant coach of their second-string team in 2020.

“I have mixed emotions really as obviously there has been a lot of work put in behind the scenes,” he said, when asked about the decision to abandon the campaign.

“The lads who have been playing reserves have worked really hard and even before all this it was a bit of a disrupted start to the season for them.

“We had a few games cancelled straight away with all the rainfail we’d had; there were no pitches available for games.

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“Quite a few clubs had games cancelled early on so there was already a frustration there for our lads because of that.

“They’d got themselves in really good shape and were looking forward to the games.

“In the big scheme of things, though, with the sport on lockdown and when we’re cutting wages and cutting staff due to Covid-19, you have to look at what’s going to have the least collateral damage. At the minute, this is probably the right decision but it is disappointing. I am really disappointed it’s happened but a lot of this is out of our control and it’s just really unfortunate.”

Trinity are big believers in using the reserves system for developing their own players and also keeping players in the sport.

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Kirmond, 34, explained how the West Yorkshire club utilises all of its personnel to maximise its potential.

“In terms of our 2020 squad, we ran a reserves team last year when a lot of teams didn’t and had a few players from that already,” he said.

“We’ve a really talented group of Under-18s so we mixed that with the Reserves and we have about 12 specific Reserves players, four or five who are full-time with the first-team and then some really good Under-18s who step up as well.

“We had a decent size squad. There’d been some really good games and teams have treated the competition with the right respect that it deserves.

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“That’s the biggest shame of it now ending; over the last couple of years if there’s been Reserves games some have been thrown together and viewed as a step back for everyone.

“But this year they were going the right way and first-team players who were stepping back were trying to earn their place back in the team.

“That’s what reserve team rugby needs to be and what the game needs as a whole; a reserve team comp’ to develop these players that are later developers.

“Not everyone is ready to play Super League at 18 or 19 years old. That’s what been missing from the game but, unfortunately, we’re going to have to take a step back from that again now.”

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Club captain Kirmond had been assisting head of youth Mark Applegarth with training on Tuesday and Thursday evenings as well as their Captain’s Run on Saturday mornings.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever done it and we did a lot of sessions together with the Under-18s, too,” he said.

“I’ve been enjoying it.”

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