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Senior Sports Reporter
THE National Rugby League will this season run an uninterrupted programme after clubs agreed that only teams with at least 10 players on national team duty will be allowed to postpone their matches.In the past, a club was allowed to postpone its fixture if it had four or more of their players with the national team.

Speaking from his Harare base yesterday, the NRL chairman Noddy Kanyangarara said clubs adopted the proposal during their general meeting.

“Clubs stressed that they don’t want interruptions when the season starts as that affects their momentum and that is why we have decided to push the start of the season to the end of April after the Dairibord Schools Rugby Festival which has replaced the Cottco Rugby Festival. During the annual schools tournament we take a break because we send our referees to officiate there.

“Members also said they have big squads and the issue of postponing league games because of national team commitments be reviewed. They agreed that matches will be postponed if a club has 10 or more players called to the national team,” said Kanyangarara.

He said they would only have a break in August.

The number of NRL teams has also been increased from eight to nine with Mutare coming on board. There was no relegation last season and no team will be axed at the end of the year as NRL looks forward to further increase clubs in the topflight to 10.

“For the sake of more competition, it was agreed that we don’t relegate any team at the end of the season and instead, promote more clubs so that competition grows. We anticipate that the more the teams in the NRL, the better the competition. It is through playing a lot of matches that our game can improve and we are trying to achieve that by introducing more teams.”