Gareth Ellis - It’s tempting to draw a line under this cursed season

The way things are going, it is understandable why people are worried about whether or not we’ll get this Super League season finished.

There has been more outbreaks at more clubs and, with the track and trace as well, suddenly fixtures are being postponed and you wonder where we will get them back.

It is strange, though. Before we started playing, while we were in lockdown the first time around, I remember saying to people that I didn’t know anyone who had had Covid.

It seemed distant. Even though you were hearing it 24/7 on the news and it was ridiculous the amount of people catching it and then, ultimately, and sadly, passing away from it, it still seemed a million miles away.

You were in your garden, getting on with things and almost felt it was someone else’s problem because you felt so far away from it all.

But to then experience what we did at Hull after just one round of fixtures against Salford, suddenly it’s on your doorstep.

Others are experiencing that now. With five clubs in total having had positives, rather than being distant it feels like it’s almost kicking the door now.

That’s to the degree that I feel, like many, it’s almost inevitable at some stage that every club will be affected by it.

That could be whether having an outbreak in their team or at least being affected fixture-wise because an opposition that possibly has had an outbreak.

I was a bit blasé about the tests originally as I just thought I wouldn’t have it and I don’t have any symptoms.

But now, every time, I’m almost hanging on that text message to say I haven’t got it.

It feels like it is something that will catch up with us eventually which is disappointing really. Like many, I’d been getting excited by the prospect of playing 15 weeks of rugby league and getting in how ever many games it was when we came back, thinking this is probably my last chance to play rugby league.

But now I’ve gone to almost getting to the stage where I’ll be glad to see the back of rugby league in 2020.

I suppose, ultimately, some of that will probably be down to the team as well; results that we’ve had, that does get you down as well, the fact you’re not performing to the level you want to be performing.

So the whole restart for me and Hull FC – and rugby league – it’s not been the best.

It’s not been one that we can all get really excited about at this moment so we’ll have to see where we go from here.

We’re already nipping at that point whereby if there is any more disruption to the fixture list there will have to be some give and some change.

Whether that’s extending the season or coming up with a system like in rugby union where it’s a nil-nil draw or a win for the team that’s not caused the fixture disruption, something might soon have to be done.

Because how long can this season go for without having an effect on 2021?

I know there’s some calls to extend the season so it will allow clubs more chance to recoup some of the money they’ve lost this year especially with the potential of fans being back in grounds later in the year.

But, on how I’m feeling, if things do get to that stage where we need to start looking at contingency plans, I’d probably side on the ‘let’s draw a line under 2020 and start a clean slate in 2021’ idea.

Personally, that’s what I’ll be doing in 2021 – going back into coaching at Hull – so there’s probably a feeling of that myself because of my own personal situation.

But I think going into a World Cup year as well we want to be as ready as possible.

I’m saying it with caution as we still don’t know where we’ll be in 2021.

But given a few more months we’ll hopefully be back to some level where we can say ‘remember last year when it was this, that and the other’ rather than how we are at the minute where we are very much living in it; that coronavirus world that is affecting us almost daily.

For now, we’re hoping our game against Wakefield Trinity goes ahead Thursday – and then it’s another crack at the Challenge Cup on Sunday.

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Thank you

James Mitchinson