SIMON SMITH: Rest weekends are working a treat for Scarborough RUFC

With us having a smaller squad, coming up against tougher opposition and playing in a harder league, this seemed the right thing to do as we looked to stay in the division.

We didn’t envisage that we’d be second in the table at this point, but these weeks off are still serving the same purpose.

They allow us to give players that extra bit of time to recover and it has worked well for us.

Nino Cutino played a good chunk of the last game against Consett, so he will be much closer to full fitness, while another returning player in Matty Young will be feeling sharper after another week off.

Now, we go into four cup finals to finish the season in exactly the same way we did last year.

Twelve months ago York had won the league and we were fighting for second with Beverley and Heath.

It is very similar this time, with ourselves holding onto second and battling with Huddersfield YMCA and Morley, who we play on Saturday.

It is all in our hands now in these last four games, if we win all of them then we’ll finish in second place at worst.

If we lose one or two then that changes things.

It certainly won’t be easy at Morley on Saturday because they are the form team in the league if you look at their results since November.

It won’t take any getting the lads up for this one because they know they have to be on their mettle.

We are six points clear of Morley at the moment, so even if we do lose we will be above them in the table.

It will be a case of going there and performing will, if we do that then we’ll come away with a decent result that will keep us right on track.

In this week’s column I’d just like to say how amazed I was when I went to the Scarborough & District Sports Council awards night on Monday.

I was in awe of how much genuine talent there is in the town, especially when you look at sports like gymnastics and mixed martial arts.

There are youngster representing their county, their country and Great Britain, which is amazing for a small town on the east coast.

I considered myself extremely fortunate and very grateful to be nominated in the coach of the year category, alongside a list of hugely talented coaches.

I have only been doing this for just over a year, while some of those coaches have been producing some amazing talent for years.

I knew that we wouldn’t win the club of the year because we were up against a Flixton team, who did so remarkably well to win the National Village Cup at Lord’s.

It was great to talk to a few of them afterwards, just so I could tell them how well they had done.