I'm not sure if its the cost but more like the players being bothered to sit on a coach all weekend.

Why, where are they playing? Italy?
It's only Wales for God's sake.

Yeah south Wales from Carlisle & Gateshead is a good trek on a coach for players who are not getting paid.

Which is why these teams have had issues in the past.

aaaaaaw

I can understand what you are saying but surely they are playing the game possibly for the love of playing the sport?
If there is something better to do on summer weekends, let them do it. Their heart obviously ain't in it.

It's not every week they'd have to travel all those distances either and if the league uses both home and away fixtures, there's a fair deal there.

I know myself, as i run a BUCS team, that travel costs are an issue but that is surely not a reason to do down the involvement of more teams outside of the M62 Corridor. It's not ideal but it should be welcomed.

I know that one of the main reasons that Carlisle struggled to raise a competitive side away from home was the number of our squad that worked Saturday morning.

Other issues were returning from the Southern games well after midnight following an 18 hour day and the 'once bitten twice shy' issue of players going on one long trip to find the side missing several key players or with only 1 substitute and having to do the tackling for 3 or 4 colleagues.

The main issue though was young lads being told by their bosses that they had to work 1 Saturday in 2; thus if the league has a strict H A H A H A ... schedule they can play every week, as soon as it deviates from this (whatever the reason) it becomes an issue. Local amateur (not semi-pro like Workington Reds) football sides travel 2 hours max and union regionalises below semi-pro level although thqir squad size is often sufficient to better accomodate drop-outs.

Liverpool aren't in the national this time round and Gateshead are the Thunder's reserves not Gateshead Storm who merged into Newcastle Storm.

Just pointing out why it's an issue. If you have a job that's not a regular mon-fri 9-5, or you have kids, then spending 16+ hours on a game of rugby just might not be possible, while playing in a more regional league would be OK. Nothing to do with heart not being in it. Teams in other amateur sports don't typically do this kind of distance. Obviously for student teams it's much less of a problem.

Then they should probably sign for and play with one of the teams in a regional league, not an RLCN club.

conferences?
tbh I played am football in a national comp it is no fun to set off at 6am play a game then sit on the bus for a few hours battered and bruised getting home.

Not a lot of those in Carlisle.

The players have indicated they want to play in the summer and the Centurions are the only club playing at that level (not semi-pro) for 50 miles.

So the bottom line is amateur sport doesn't work at national level , so regional comps should be the aim with a national finals system

Exactly