After what seems a lifetime without rugby, the sport is set to return for the 2021/22 season with Manx sides playing in the national leagues as well as a new-look domestic competition.

Douglas will be playing in the English Clubs Championship in North One West which was basically where they left off after Covid struck way back in March last year.

The league is predominantly the same as it was, but does include some new sides. Carlisle drop down a division from 2019-20, Kendal move across from North One East while Glossop and Manchester are promoted.

Douglas’s fixture list gets underway on Saturday, September 4.

Vagabonds Ladies have also secured a league position in Womens NC 1 North West. Like Douglas, this was the league they were in pre-Covid and contains some familiar names. New faces for this season are Yorkshire side Halifax and Littleborough, who hail from just outside Rochdale.

Vagas’ fixtures are currently scheduled to begin on September 26.

For Vagabonds’ men and Ramsey, there is no league rugby for another season at least. This is unchanged from the end of the 2019-20 season and is a result of disagreements over travelling distances within the ranks of RFU North which saw 36 sides leave the competition and set up their own leagues.

This left Vagabonds and Ramsey with no opposition. An RFU rescue plan could see openings in September 2022 for the two sides, but as yet that is not confirmed.

Vagabonds and Ramsey will therefore join Southern Nomads and Douglas Celts in a new-look domestic competition which will be made up of two leagues.

The four ’big’ teams will play in League One and the rest in League Two (Castletown, Emerging Nomads, Ramsey B, Vagabonds Hornets and Western Vikings).

Matches will begin in early October and will be preceded by a series of friendly games which will be held between late August and the end of September.

DAVE CHRISTIAN