Top of the boardroom agenda last week was whether we wanted to enter the 125-year celebratory cup competition.

There was much to consider. Clearly, not playing, keeping the players furloughed, no testing costs and not jumping through all the Covid hoops in terms of protocols is the easy choice. This is a choice that many clubs have taken. We could save money and simply prepare for the next season.

However, as long as the costs are not too prohibitive, then we believe that we should enter. We have Keith Holt, our finance man, tasked with looking at different financial scenarios around playing and not playing but it is not black and white.

Not playing for virtually a year is demoralising for the players, coaches and fans. We are a rugby club at the end of the day and if there are other clubs playing while we sit on the sidelines, we don’t feel it sends the right message.

Financially, we aren’t putting the club at risk. We have been very proactive during lockdown and we have diversified and even increased our income streams.

Then there is the prize money. As more and more teams drop out, the prize pool is divided by fewer numbers and it starts to become attractive and possibly a money-spinner.

At the moment the government are allowing socially distant crowds from the start of October but we all probably saw that they did a U-turn on allowing crowds in test venues last weekend.

That may been seen as a risk in terms of releasing the players from furlough in September and then getting the decision reversed in October and no way back to furlough.

However, we will only be partially releasing players from furlough as they will only be training in September and we would be able to put them back to a fully furloughed state if required.

The scheme ends in November anyway and as we are committed to fully meet our contractual obligations; we would need to find 100 per cent of the wage bill for that month. So why not be playing games to help with the income streams?

At one of our last RFL club meetings before lockdown in February, we were asked what the landscape would look like below Super League after the next Sky deal in 2022.

There was much discussion, but most clubs seemed to be of the same train of thought that only the best of the rest would be in the Championship. It was suggested that this could be by invitation.

Clearly our short-term aim, and one I think we are achieving, is that we are one of the best run lower league clubs. Yes, we are in League One but I still feel that if there were any invitations being handed out it will be a tough call not to include us.

We have focussed on diversification of income streams and are well placed to make our case for inclusion.