KENDAL coach Ian Voortman gives his view of the week's events at Mint Bridge.

THIS spell of bad weather has been pretty testing for all involved at our club. On the playing front,it has been a struggle to maintain the intensity at training with players battling to make it in and the pitches being unusable due to the frost.

Behind the scenes our steward Alan Wilson has been working very hard to keep people coming through the doors, thereby maintaining some sort of revenue stream for the club.

Some might say that these postponed games give one an opportunity to recharge one’s batteries and enjoy some rare time away from the game.

Unfortunately for most of us this time is taken up by things like Christmas shopping and DIY around the house!

This week we say goodbye to our skipper for up to eigth weeks as he has minor surgery to his knee.

We all wish Gareth (Gore) well and hope he makes a swift recovery.

On the positive side Liam Hayton only received a one-week ban for the red card he got against Luctonians and he is therefore available to play against Nuneaton this weekend.

The RFU panel clearly took his previous good behaviour (he hardly ever gets caught) into account and quite rightly gave him the benefit of the doubt.

As I write this the five-day forecast for the Nuneaton area looks positively tropical compared to what we are getting up here, with temperatures around the 4-degree mark making the prospect of rugby very possible this weekend.

An away win is a must and will see us into the Christmas period looking forward instead of over our shoulders.