Rotherham Rugby Club sounds cautiously optimistic note for 2021

The enforced closure of the Clifton Lane clubhouse due to the pandemic has shut off a vital source of revenue and with no income from matches, Titans have been forced to rely on the goodwill of its directors, supporters and sponsors to get by.

The arrival of stiffer Government restrictions means there will be no let-up any time soon, with any sort of normality not possible until the second half of the year.

Although Jenkinson is confident Titans will be raring to go for the start of the 2021/22 season slated to start in September, he is not complacent as the club plots a way back from relegation from National One that was decided by the RFU on a playing record formula.

“If any club could feel hard done by then it's us,” Jenkinson told the Advertiser. “We want to put that right and we want to get back and we are doing our level best to do it.

“We will survive, there is no two ways about that, and we will come out the other side fighting, but it is hard for everybody and we want all the help we can get.

“We are ambitious and our ambition as a club is to push on and get back to where we were.

“The vast majority of the players that signed for last year have re-signed — people like Colin Quigley, Lloyd Hayes, Michael Hills.

"On top of that the squad we are putting together should be massively competitive in National Two North.

“We need everybody's help and with everybody's help there is no reason why we shouldn't succeed.”

The team's most recent skipper, Zak Poole, is among the players to have committed for another season.

While determined to make sure the club's drop into regional rugby for the first time since 1996 only lasts for one season, he is gutted the chance to do it has been delayed.

“We were hard done by,” he said. “If we could get back up it would prove so many people wrong that we didn't deserve to be in this league.

“Had this lay-off come and we'd still been a National One club, we wouldn't have to wait for that redemption. Now we're just sat on the fence waiting and that's the killer. We want to get back at it and make up for it. We can but with a year's delay. Other people might forget it but we won't and we will use that to drive us. We will get there.”