Endeavour Hills coach Mark Thompson believes his side is in grave danger of being removed from the Premier One competition if his players do not pay their fees.By Marc McGowan
ENDEAVOUR Hills Rugby Union Club is in crisis mode after forfeiting its round eight Victorian Rugby Union Premier One encounter with Melbourne due to non-payment of fees by several players.
As of Wednesday morning, there was a real chance of Endeavour Hills being forced into forfeit again this weekend against Melbourne University.
Three Endeavour Hills players paid the $195 insurance and competition costs at training on Tuesday night, but there were a further nine players yet to do so.
Endeavour Hills coach Mark Thompson made it clear that the club was not forfeiting to teach the players a lesson, claiming that there was little choice in the matter.
“The deadline (for fees to be received) was Thursday last week and we warned them through the pre-season,” he said.
“It was my decision and the committee backed me up straight away.
“As I’ve told the guys, in reality that money goes to insurance and doing things around the club for us.”
Thompson’s greatest fear is that Endeavour Hills will be removed from Premier One.
“Northern’s second-grade side is out after it forfeited four times, but I don’t know whether that was over fees – that means we have only three more hits to go,” he said.
“What we don’t want is a situation where there are so many forfeits that we get kicked out of the competition.
“We don’t want to go there because we’ve fought long and hard to get to Premier One, and we don’t want to blow that.”
Despite the negativity surrounding the issue, Thompson is confident his team will step onto H.G. Smith Oval at 3.15pm on Saturday against Melbourne University.
