Last updated 11:22, Thursday, 03 April 2008

THE Cumbria Plate takes pride of place in Workington’s trophy cabinet as the Zebras were the first team to win the trophy last season.

Three on one: Keswick scrum-half Matty Roper is held back by Zebras David Bowe as team-mate Michael Hawley comes in from the side during last season’s Plate final

It was a competition started for the lesser lights in the League system after the main competition - the Story Cumbria Cup - was re-vamped to be contested by the top eight teams in the county.

Generally regarded as a good move by the County RFU, clubs were complimentary about the introduction of the second tier competition - but that doesn’t seem to have been carried on to the current campaign.

For whatever reason there doesn’t seem to have been much progress made in sorting out who will be contesting the closing stages.

For while the two senior semi-finals - Kendal v Penrith and Kirkby Lonsdale v Aspatria - go ahead on Saturday, the Plate seems to have been badly fragmented.

Information is sparse but competition secretary Eric Lightfoot - recovering from an ankle operation at the moment - might see some progress made this week-end, however small.

Whitehaven and Gosforth Greengarth are going to go for it at the Playground this Saturday, but that’s only a preliminary round tie and the winners are still due to play a quarter-final with Furness.

It doesn’t get much better because Windermere and Netherhall haven’t played their preliminary round game - and don’t appear to have any plans to.

Moresby are still waiting in the wings to play the winners.

Well done to Keswick and Millom - they at least made progress - although whether they beat Egremont and BAE Barrow respectively to do so, or were given walk-overs, hasn’t been confirmed.

However what is clear is that Keswick - despite being beaten finalists last year and clinching the Cumbria League title last week - aren’t going for the double.

Despite lots of discussions with quarter final opponents Millom it has been impossible to come-up with a suitable date to play the tie because of other commitments.

Oh yes, and then there is Creighton versus Cockermouth in the quarter final and both clubs appear not to know enough about the tie to fix-up a game.

You will have gathered now it is a complete mess and unless there are a series of walk-overs the final is unlikely to be played.

That’s a terrible shame because the competition itself is praiseworthy and one that should be encouraged and be given a higher profile in fact.

The County Handbook has Saturday given over to the County Cup semi-finals and the County Plate semi-finals, but that long-term planning has fallen flat.

What’s to be done? Given that the Plate is seen as a worthwhile exercise the competition should be retained.

But how best to structure the competition into the playing demands of the League season - and don’t forget the Cumbria League has 13 teams, and that’s the biggest in the country?

Well one thing that must be dispensed with is the opportunity for clubs to duck out of a fixture without penalty.

It’s laughingly referred to in the Cumbria League as “playing your joker” when teams ask to be relieved of a fixture for the first time in a particular season. That match can be postponed with no points deducted.

That’s complete nonsense. In fact when clubs can’t fulfil fixtures they should also be fined and docked points.

They are nearly always away games which are pulled and the lack of revenue to the host club isn’t considered as on occasions the fixture goes unfulfilled later in the season.

I know it’s radical but what about splitting the Cumbria League into A and B - persuade Silloth to come back into the B League so that there are seven teams taking part in each.

The likes of Silloth (the second teams at Aspatria, Wigton and Workington who can’t win promotion in any case) plus the lowest three clubs on final standings this season could contest the Cumbria B League.

At the moment they would be Egremont, Cockermouth and Creighton.

In the A League the participating teams would be St Benedict’s (if they come down to replace champions Keswick), Netherhall, Whitehaven, Millom, Moresby, Gosforth Greengarth and BAE Barrow - again based on current standings.

The champions of Cumbria A would be promoted as normal to North Lancs Cumbria while the bottom side would go into Cumbria B to be replaced by the top side from that section. Whether you would allow a second team to be promoted to Cumbria A would have to be thrashed out beforehand.

Those League standings would give each team 12 fixtures, home and away - exactly half what they play now.

Therefore use the other 12 fixtures to contest the Cumbria Plate. Do this on a free draw - placing any seven teams in one group and the other seven in the second group.

The teams would play home and away and at the end of the season the Cumbria Plate final could be contested by the winners of each section.

You could even have a semi-final whereby the winners of Group A plays the runners-up in Group B and vice versa.

Who knows, in time it might tempt back the likes of Windermere, Ambleside and Furness - especially if Silloth can make a successful return.