Grassroots Pulse

🏉 Promotion and Relegation, explained.

Last week the RFU released their 26/27 season briefing. It confirms the new runner-up playoff at Counties 1 we flagged recently, which replaces both the old Best Playing Record (BPR) system and the Community Cup.

Last season the playoffs and relegation didn't just surprise grassroots fans, they caught a couple of clubs out right at the sharp end. So here is how it works for Regional 1, Regional 2 and Counties 1.

Counties 2, 3 and 4 aren't in the briefing detail yet. As we said in our season previews, what happens down there will come down to geography and the fallout from Levels 5, 6 and 7 above. That's not us skipping the lower leagues, there just isn't a fixed structure to show yet.

*note i updated the R2 structure as id incorrectly put the survival play offs at 9 and 10, the graphic is now correct. 10 & 11 play off. Thanks to eagle eyed Chris for spotting.

🏉 Confirmed ✅
Counties 1️⃣ promotion and relegation this season, and there's some lovely jeopardy in it.

The RFU's pre-season briefing has confirmed the full structure. We broke the headline a fortnight ago when Best Playing Record was scrapped. Now here's how it actually works, and the good news is nobody leaves the region until the very top.

Promotion. Five runners-up go up into Regional 2, decided by two rounds of playoffs.

Semi Final: North v South
For the Midlands, round one is all local: East (North) v East (South), and West (North) v West (South). Two all-Midlands semi-finals. The two winners then play each other.

Final: East V West
Five second-round ties nationally, five promotion places. An all-Midlands second-round shootout. Two get there. One goes up. Decided on the pitch, against a fellow Midlands side, not by a spreadsheet.

Relegation, the cascade.

🚨10th Place is not Safe
The briefing uses the same word we have for weeks. Each Midlands Counties 1 league faces a maximum of three relegations and a minimum of one. So at least one club goes down from each, and up to three might, depending on how the playoffs above shake out. The exact number isn't known until the playoffs finish, because the two are linked.

This is exactly what caught Stewarts & Lloyds and Kesteven and last season. The difference now is clubs can see their range up front, in an official document, rather than being blindsided in May.

More certainty. More fairness. And a genuine end-of-season shootout with a Midlands promotion place on the line.

Full breakdown on the website. link in comments.

💪 Hard ground, strong bodies. What every player can do right now.

Yesterday we looked at some of the science behind the season delay and why rock-hard ground is a genuine welfare issue. The response was brilliant, from players in both codes, all saying the same thing: the pitches are as hard as anyone can remember, and everyone wants to be back playing safely.

So here's the constructive follow-up. The ground's still hard, and it'll stay firm for a while yet. But there's a lot you can do to protect yourself, and most of it doesn't need you to wait for training.

Not Everyone has access to top notch S & C coaches so meet ACTIVATE, the free injury prevention programme developed by the RFU with the University of Bath. It's not guesswork. It came from one of the largest studies of its kind in the world, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, and carried out at exactly our levels, RFU levels 3 to 9.

The findings are striking. Players following the programme saw a 60% reduction in concussion and a 40% reduction in lower-limb injuries, the knee and ankle damage that firm ground drives, and which make up around half of all community rugby injuries.

And here's the kicker: the more you do it, the more it works. The clubs that committed properly saw the biggest gains. This isn't a box to tick.

The best part for right now? You don't have to wait for the coach. The "Be Ready" resources target specific areas, ankle, knee, hips, core, shoulder and neck. Worried about your knees on firm ground? Go and work on exactly that, at home, in your own time, for free. The delay has handed a lot of us a couple of extra weeks. No better time to get ahead of it.

Most of us have played on grounds similar to the ones we're all staring at now, and I clearly didn't do enough to protect my joints taking the punishment (or maybe i was just unlucky 😏). But like a lot of you i needed numerous ops and eventually I had to have both knees replaced a couple of years ago.
When you're twenty five and bulletproof you shake off the bumps and get yourself fit for another go, but the body keeps the receipts. A few minutes of prep now, the kind the study shows cuts lower-limb injuries by 40%, is a tiny price to pay for the version of you that still wants to get up the stairs comfortably in a few years.

The delay is a frustration. It's also an opportunity. Arrive back better than you left.

Look after yourselves out there. The season will keep a couple of weeks. Youre gonna need them knees a lot longer. 🏉

Full piece and the free ACTIVATE link on grassroots pulse
link in comments.

🏉 Season delay

⁉️Some questions answered ⁉️

📅 FIXTURE UPDATE 🚨
Here's the revised Midlands structure.

Following the RFU's decision to delay the competitive season, the Midlands Regional Organising Committee has confirmed how the season now looks. If you've been wondering when your club is back in competitive action, here's the clear picture.

Your season starts on 26 September. (Guess thats subject to how effective the rain dances are) That's the new opening weekend for Regional 1, Regional 2 and Counties 1 to 4.

The two postponed rounds have been slotted back in cleverly. Rather than pushing everything back two weeks, the ROC has used gaps that already existed:

The original opening fixture, the one due on 12 September, now moves to 10 October, using what was a free weekend.

The round 2 fixture originally set for 19 September moves to 9 January.

Everything else flows around those two insertions. The season still finishes exactly when it always would. The November break stays.

Counties 4 clubs: your structure looks slightly different because of the 10 ten-team league, but your season also starts on 26 September. Your breaks and fixture sequence just follow the ten-team rhythm.

The revised structure also confirms the end of season picture, including the new Counties 1 promotion playoffs replacing Best Playing Record, and the narrowed Regional 2 playoffs we covered last week.

Thanks again to Chris Brookes at Long Eaton RFC and RFU Council for keeping the Midlands community informed. Club-by-club fixtures to follow from the ROCs.

📰 Since the news landed on Friday, I've been keeping an eye on the socials, and one debate keeps coming back: are the RFU playing it too safe?
Two arguments come up again and again. One, rugby league plays all summer on ground every bit as hard as ours. Two, clubs already have clear guidance and discretion to judge their own pitch, so why take that call away?
Both are fair. So why has the season been pushed back?.

A few things worth considering:

🏏That baked, rock-hard pitch throws energy straight back at whatever lands on it. On a cricket square that gives you bounce. On a rugby pitch it's straight back to your joints.

🏉 League isn't just a summer game, it's a different game. Those lads are conditioned to firm ground, and the tackle is generally more upright. Plenty who enjoy both will know many league tackles would be a straight card in union.

🚨 This drought is national and extreme. Wildfires are burning out of control, the fire service is stretched to breaking, and a rare national alert has been issued.
Those alerts are only authorised when there's an immediate and severe danger to life

Bar the lucky few with irrigation or 4G, every pitch from Regional 1 to Counties 4 is the same right now, rock hard with barely any green on it.

We went digging into the actual science: the cricket-pitch physics, what really happens to a body on hard ground, the old "will it take a stud" test, and why one national call might make more sense than leaving 150 clubs to make 150 assessments on the 12 September.

One final point to note is this decision was made with extensive consultation with the clubs.

Full story on the site 👇

Played both codes, or nurse a pitch through a dry spell? We especially want to hear from you in the comments.

🚨 BREAKING: The start of the community game season has been delayed.

The RFU has confirmed tonight that the competitive community game season across England will be delayed by two weeks. This affects every club in the Midlands pyramid from Regional 1 to Counties 4.

Here's what you need to know.

The season now starts the week commencing 21 September, not 12 September as planned. All fixtures scheduled for 12 and 19 September are postponed and will be rearranged by Regional Organising Committees.

Why? The drought. Over 70% of England is now officially in drought conditions with no meaningful rain forecast. No region in the country is currently at "normal" status. The RFU has taken the decision on three grounds, player welfare on hard pitches, competition integrity, and giving clubs planning certainty now rather than a last minute call.

The important details:

Friendlies can still go ahead where conditions allow, with a full risk assessment, so pre-season rugby isn't cancelled, and the two week delay may actually give conditions time to improve for warm-up games.

Training continues, with modified contact guidance on hard ground.

The November break is expected to remain in place, and the RFU expects the programme to catch up by Christmas or early New Year. The season will not be extended.

The National Leagues (Levels 3 and 4) are exempt and may play, due to irrigated pitches and their longer fixture programme.

This will be disappointing for clubs, players and volunteers who've spent all summer preparing. But the decision has been made with player safety at its heart, and the certainty of a confirmed date is better than a moving target.

We have the full breakdown, including age grade competitions and what it means level by level, on the website Link in comments.

Our thanks to Chris at RFU Council for making sure the Midlands grassroots community got this news quickly.

2️⃣0️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ thank you's.
Honestly didn't see that coming 👀

When I started this earlier this year it was an experiment and a bit of a passion project. After forty odd years of involvement in grassroots rugby in the Midlands, i had a frustration that the game at our level isn't getting the attention it deserved, and an idea that maybe I could do something about it.
Im not a journalist, i have no affiliation to the RFU or any of the CBs, just a fan with a passion for the game we all love.

Honestly, i wasn't sure anyone would care.

But you lot did. And here we are.

2,000 followers. Five months. Every league from Regional 1 to Counties 4 covered. 25 leagues, 283 teams, 3,000 + fixtures, tables, results, club maps, away day planner, season previews, fantasy rugby and more news and information than I ever expected to be sharing. All free. All Midlands. Every club, every level treated equally, because the Counties 4 clubs duking it out in the freezing rain (wouldn't that be nice right now?) care as much, love the game and deserve the same coverage as the Regional 1 giants pushing for the nationals.

That last bit is more important to me than anything else about this platform.

The season kicks off in four weeks so keep your eyes peeled for our usual features. Round-ups every Saturday, Team of the Week, match reports, club news, results and tables updated weekly. Everything we've built over the last few months was just the foundation.

I'd love to know what you want to see more of. Match coverage? Club stories? Analysis? Something we haven't done yet? Drop a comment and tell me, this works better when the community shapes it.

So if you've been here since the start, thank you for trusting it. If you've just found us, welcome! If you've shared a post and brought someone new in - you've genuinely helped build something.

Here's to the next 2,000. 🏉