As 2022 comes to a close, we take our Christmas/New Year break hoping that all our members and supporters have enjoyed plenty of festive cheer.  

The first half of the season has been challenging for junior club rugby nationwide with Cornwall being no exception.  An alarming number of scheduled fixtures have been cancelled due to falling player participation – it’s good to see that the RFU and CRFU are proactively trying to address the situation as best possible.  On a positive note, this makes it all the more pleasing to report that Roseland RFC has suffered no such fate.  

We have played all 12 of our scheduled pre-Christmas league fixtures, the only exception being our away trip to Camelford who have unfortunately withdrawn from the league due to a continued lack of players.   Our playing record stands at 5 wins and 7 losses as we stand a very respectable 7th out of 10 in Counties 3 Cornwall League.

Having opened strongly against the incredible Redruth Albany, who somehow keep going despite a -792 points difference from 11 games so far this season, we took a bit of a battering away at Launceston.   Then followed a home defeat to St Agnes, when we fell foul of the new guidelines designed to get matches played with less than 15 a side when we thought we had been conceded a victory, and a tough loss at St Just was next.   Hardly in crisis yet in need of a result, the boys bounced back immediately with an away win at Bude (amazing what a bus trip does!) and a great home win against our greatest rivals, Lankelly Fowey in front of an excellent crowd.

Spirited performances followed against a very strong Camborne outfit and Wadebridge, the latter unluckily resulting in a narrow defeat in injury time.   Defeat followed at a rejuvenated Perranporth, in the howling wind and rain, but then possibly the highlight of the season so far – Launceston were our visitors with our boys seeking to avenge a painful 75-10 thrashing in September.  The lads pulled it off with a cracking 17-15 win care of an injury time try.  Finally, at table topping St Agnes, the lads put in another great shift to come away with a losing try bonus point, scoring six tries in total including the final score of the game.  

Most recent was the traditional friendly Boxing Day fixture with Truro – at Truro this year, the game was full of cheer and played in an excellent spirit.   I don’t know what the score was except that both teams scored plenty of tries with Truro expectedly coming out on top.

And so we move on to 2023 and a further 6 league matches, the first of which is the challenging visit of St Just to Philleigh on 7th January, when we hope to see many of you.  This season’s format is such that our league season ends in early March following which various cup competitions commence.  We have been drawn against Camborne School of Mines in the Cornwall Clubs Cup and have elected to enter the Papa John’s Community Cup.  Regionalised in the early rounds, our initial opponents are not yet known be we look forward to it nonetheless, especially as the competition final takes place at Twickenham at the end of April – now that really would be “living the dream” ! 

This just leaves us to thank all our members and sponsors for your continued support and to wish everyone a very Happy New Year.

Cheers

Nick

(Nick Sylvester, Secretary)