All Blacks facing player crisis

The club have struggled a few times this season to put out a full quota of 17 players and on Saturday had only ten available for their clash against Brotherton.

The decision was taken to call the match off and the players have now been urged to show more commitment to the club.

"There's no more the committee can do," said club spokesman Charles Rollinson.

"We need everybody to train and, most importantly, we need to get 17 players out there on a Saturday, but that's not happening at the moment."

"A last resort would be to fold but if we have more weeks like this week we will be left with no other choice. Hopefully the players will respond and we can get the club back on track."

Although the All Blacks have a strong junior set-up, the senior section has been in decline in the last year or two, being forced to drop out of the National Conference League - the strongest amateur league in the country - in the summer as they were unable to meet NCL criteria of having a reserve team.

They entered the Yorkshire League senior division (which was restructured to become the senior and division one during the season) but a number of players left to stay at the higher level, while coaches Garry and Paul Atkins also quit the club. They currently prop up the table with one win in 11 games.

"We had a lot of upheaval in pre-season with several players leaving, many of whom went to Heworth or York Acorn. In the Challenge Cup tie between those two clubs (on Saturday) there were about eight of our old players involved," said Rollinson.

"But there are plenty of players signed on and we have a big enough squad on paper but the players are not committing themselves.

"We've struggled to get a full 17 players two or three times and the situation has become critical.

"We held players' meetings earlier in the season and had a good response from them but the situation has got worse."

Updated: 09:02 Tuesday, December 18, 2001