"The New Year brings us into the hundredth year of the club's existence. It offers a chance to reflect upon the year's achievements and consider the challenges ahead.

Most of 2004 has seen us in the bottom half of the league.

We have won 14 games and drawn one in the calendar year; we finished last season in eighth place, and currently stand at eighth this season.

This leaves us to consider whether the summit of our ambition is to keep the unseemly relegation battle at arm's length, and to breathe a sigh of relief at the end of each campaign if National League status has been maintained.

These unimpressive statistics are not, however, consistent with some of the rugby seen at Mint Bridge in 2004.

Enterprise, ambition, breath-taking handling, dazzling running and powerful mauling have been in greater evidence than on many grounds at this level.

So why are we consigned to share the bargain basement with opponents for whom the touchline is the first resort and pace in the game is an uncomfortable anathema?

There are a number of factors which impede progress, and prevent the club competing in the top half of the competition, finishing regularly in the top five and overachieving against the economically advantaged.

The foremost factor is the depth of the squad. At full strength, I think we are a match for just about any team in the league. It is, however, unrealistic to believe that an eight-month campaign is not going to be susceptible to disruption through injury, illness and unavailability.

The number of positions in which we have strong cover is frighteningly small. Disruption is inevitably compounded by having to rearrange the team to change positions and adjust tactics, rather than make a straight swap.

Another is the amount of practice time. With five squad sessions per month, time for addressing weaknesses, and developing new tactics is severely limited.

This means that Saturday's team, and its immediate performance is the constant priority, and the development of young players, higher skill levels and the evolution of more advanced strategies is put on the back-burner.

The geography of Cumbria, appealing though it is to tourists and landscape painters, is not conducive to assembling a rugby team for midweek winter practice, though we salute the commitment of those who travel furthest.

Our west coast contingent, facing a round trip of 150 miles up to three times a week, are, by a wide margin, the most reliable attenders at training, and are almost never unavailable.

There is no doubt that there is still inadequate attention to the development of the game below the first team.

Despite some stalwart work by those at the helm of the second and youth teams, the structures that support them are insubstantial, and the development of the game in the community is patchy at best.

The club faces its Centenary season with many challenges ahead and its first must be to maintain National League rugby in Cumbria.

History suggests that few clubs losing this status are successful in restoring it, but this goal must be part of a wider ambition to establish stronger roots for the game in the area.

The club should be justly proud of what has been achieved, often against the odds, in the year recently concluded.

Against impressive competition, things have been held together with balsa wood and string.

However, in a rugby environment where standing still is going backwards, there are major challenges ahead, which will define where the club will be at its bicentenary.