SURELY time has come for the Yorkshire RFU committee to take the bull - or even ball - by the horns and admit it is time to change the dates of the Yorkshire Cup.

The first round of fixtures were beset with the worrying sign of 'w/o' in too many of the results as clubs across the county failed to field sides for what was the blue ribband event for the White Rose committee.

And unless something is done to breathe new life into the competition, it is in danger of completely falling apart.

York's second round tie with Doncaster at Clifton Park was the latest of the no-shows, with Andy Gair's men switching their attention to today's play-off decider against Hartlepool Rovers.

Can anyone blame them? What chance did they realistically have of beating a side made up predominantly of National Two players?

Evening kick-offs, league commitments, tours and a complete gulf in standards have all contributed to the gloss being taken off the competition.

With kick-offs scheduled for 6.30pm, players at York, Pocklington and Selby barely have time to get to their own grounds from work, let alone trekking across the county in rush-hour traffic.

The timing of the competition is now clashing with finales to the league season, while other clubs have booked tours away.

And when it comes to the matches, as gamely as Pocklington and Selby fought in their opening round ties, they were never going to bridge the gap between them and Doncaster and Harrogate respectively.

Admittedly Selby did have a good run through the early rounds a few years back, but with the top clubs now taking this competition seriously what chance do they have?

Bizarrely, the Yorkshire Shield and Silver Trophy both seem to run okay through the league season on the spare Saturdays, so maybe it's time to move the Yorkshire Cup to at least answer some of the problems.

IT seems the social side was not lost on the Fourth York Veterans' Tournament.

As reported in Scrum Down last week, the tournament was won by Selby courtesy of their success in the group stage after they had drawn the final 7-7.

However, there was a more novel way of deciding the destination of the Plate section with York taking the title without even taking to the field.

There should have been a Plate Final but the combined Police/RI team decided the bar was open and that was a more promising prospect than the rock-hard pitches, therefore York were confirmed as the champions by delaying their entry to the bar by a few minutes.

Updated: 12:03 Saturday, April 26, 2003