Phil Cringle’s professional rugby career hangs in the balance after the coronavirus pandemic compounded earlier funding cuts to his club, reports Andy Dalrymple.

Richmond-based London Scottish was already reeling from the news that the RFU was to slash by half the financial support provided to the 12-club Championship it plays in when Covid-19 brought an abrupt halt to the current season less than a month later.

The Manx-born prop forward has played for Scottish since he signed from French side US Carcassone in the summer of 2016, but admits his future in the sport is an uncertain one: ’To be honest, I’ve no idea what happens next,’ he said at the weekend.

’Covid-19 and the funding cuts means myself, along with most Championship rugby players, are completely in the dark as to what next season will look like.

’For now I’m exploring all options, including coming home.’

The 26-year-old from Ballakeighan, near Castletown, added that his club aren’t the only ones that will struggle in the face of this potentially devastating double blow.

’Scottish admittedly will be hit very hard by the funding cuts, along with a lot of the Championship teams. This unfortunately means that most will have to go part-time.

’The face of professional rugby in England has completely changed in the space of a couple of months.’

At the time of the 2019-20 campaign being suspended, Scottish sat third from bottom in the standings, with basement side Yorkshire Carnegie being relegated to National League One.

Phil said it had been a positive season so far for the Exiles: ’It was going well.

’We were having a good season, not winning as many games as we’d have liked but picking up lots of losing bonus points, showing how close the games were.

’Personally I played all bar one of the games until it stopped and felt I was going quite well, so I’m gutted it ended early really.’

Phil is currently in Preston at his fiancée Ashley’s house as he couldn’t get back to the island before the Manx borders closed.

’I was planning on coming back [to the island], but by the time the decision was made to curtail the rugby season, it was too late.

The former Castle Rushen student has been doing his best to keep his fitness ticking over while in lockdown: ’For now I’m keeping relatively fit. Conditioning is easy, it’s just difficult to keep strength and match fitness up.’

The first teams of Douglas, Ramsey and Vagabonds, as well at the latter’s women’s side, saw their seasons brought to an end by last week’s ruling by the ERFU to bring a curtain down on the campaign. Using the ’best playing record formula’ that was used to determine the campaign’s final league placings, Vagabonds finished runners up in South Lancashire/Cheshire Two to secure promotion. There was reaction from coach Ryan de la Harpe to that in last week’s Manx Independent.

The Manx Executive Committee which runs local rugby has yet to make a formal decision on how its season will end. The Manx Shield was claimed by Douglas Celts before the virus struck so it’s likely that it will remain as is. The other competitions, however, were far from complete and with no clear end for the current lockdown in sight it seems unlikely that remaining fixtures can or will be completed by the regular end of season and it seems inevitable that these competitions will be declared void for the season.