Northants Knights can confirm that the scheduled game on 31/07/22 against Worcestershire Black Knights will not go ahead as planned.

We were notified by email at 11pm on Friday 29/07/22 by the WBK secretary that the Head Coach has made the decision to not play due to “linemen testing positive for COVID” leaving them with only four available.

We tried to find solutions for WBK, such as dressing other players in linemen numbers, having a running clock and playing our second string, but they were not willing to play us.

This now marks the second time this season that WBK have refused to play us - our first game ending in a 61-0 victory - but the cancellation this time around has come with only one full day's notice, leaving us with a costly coach-hire bill.

We move to 7-0-0 on the season but with only four games actually played. We would have been without a game for 12 weeks before we travel to Swindon Storm next week.

Not only does this anger our players who have paid for their membership, booked time off work or not made plans for the dates, but it now affects our seedings for the playoffs and how physically ready we will be once they come.

It is our hope that BAFA will look into this and other teams who have seemingly cherry picked games this season, and we see a different look next year.

Our attention now turns to Swindon Storm next week.