Me and the Big Woman have had a fruitful few days herding cats and nailing trifle to the walls in an effort to publicise the Big Week. We also spent the night times pedalling the streets of Bingley on a floodlit bicycle made for two and a bit, loud hailer at the ready, warning the good folk of the town of the perils of tying Tiddles to a lamp post outside the Post Office. Your granny can be left for up to a week without any problems as the pension will be still there next week, but never leave Tiddles outside, that was our message.

Frankly I’m shattered and a little hoarse, or pony if you prefer.

Talking of fur and feather, this week we welcome the furriest of our opponents, the followers of the Beaver – the good folk of Beverley. We last faced today’s opponents all of 12 games ago and they gave us a proper cuff up the side of the head, 69-7. Our 7 was collected by James Morton crossing for our only try, with Nick Wainwright converting. On the Beaver side of the ball, the chief culprit was flanker Joseph Pickets who helped himself to a three-timer, along with Robert Smith who burgled three from the bench.

The Bees line up that afternoon read: Moss, Greenfield, Wederell, Jeffrey, Mitchell ©, Fisher, Barden, and Malthouse in the pack; the backline went: Kanorous, Wainwright, Wellington, Sheriffe, Tafa, Hesketh, Greaves. The bench was: Peglau, Hill and Morton. From that line-up Greenfield and Hesketh have now left the club, Nick Wainwright has been largely unavailable and Eddie Peglau has been out injured, so this week’s Bees will be a changed beast in any case.

Strangely, our opponents are the only club in the division who have no mathematical interest left in either the promotion race or the relegation death rattle. Those of you who can do sums will have noticed that the men of the Beaver can attain 82 league points if all their ducks are in a line. However, hold on there, Sonny Jim, Huddersfield have already won more games so that places them above those favouring Beaver no matter what happens, and barring an act of God that’s sealed the fate of the Beave.

The other major development over the last few weeks, other than the Beaver being confirmed in no man’s land, is that Penrith are definitely down. As in relegated, not just sobbing quietly into a hanky. This obviously leaves our slightly careworn trousers hanging over the parapet along with Percy Park, Waterloo and Billingham.

Obviously The South Leeds Death Star at Morley, The Burnage Vajazzlers and Biffa Bacon up at Westoe can still potentially get pulled back into the unsightly squabble down here at the wrong end, but that would take a bizarre chain of results from those three sides for any of those types to be slip sliding into our muddied water.

Although we dare not mention the R word in these parts, obviously it remains a possibility that we will be playing against a different set of opponents next year if we do fall through the trap door to North Division 1 East. Who will we be cuddling up to in that division, is the next great ponderable. Obviously there is a fair bit of uncertainty as to who we would actually be facing if we did disappear down the rabbit hole, as possibly two teams, Cleckheaton and Huddersfield YMCA, might get promoted and three teams will be climbing onto the greasy pole southwards from that division.

However, should Steve McQueen fail to make it over the barbed wire yet again and our Great Escape ends in tears and we find ourselves aboard the Love Train to Middlesborough and other such exotic outposts, next season, it then follows that the other great unknown at the moment is where will be end up the season after? For those of you who might not have realised, the RFU, in their role as Oz the Great and Powerful have decided to reform the leagues from the start of the 2015/16 season.

While the final structures have yet to be agreed, it seems that the Great and the Good at TW1 have decided to “flatten the pyramid”, with the express intention of making leagues more regional and thereby reducing travel times. The grown-ups have also decided that we all play too many league games, so have decreed that all the leagues, with the exception of National 1, will be 12 team leagues, giving us 22 fixtures, not the current 26. To make up that shortfall the RFU have decided to re-introduce Cup competitions.

The new-fangled Cup competitions will involve teams playing in “pool” of four or five teams with the winner of each pool progressing to a quarter final or a last sixteen or some such. With the RFU not proposing to extend any new funding to clubs, the rather large hole in their scheme is that clubs will end up with less gate revenue (11 home league fixtures) and no guarantee of any reduction in costs (the likes of Alnwick, Percy Park, Westoe et al will still be on our radar and who knows where we will end up in the Cup).

Although the vast majority of clubs have voted against these changes, the RFU seem intent to plough that furrow anyway. Also hidden in the RFU proposals is the introduction of play offs between Level 4 and Level 3. So you might win your league, but that would be no guarantee of your elevation to the next level. I also understand that only the winners of the leagues at Level 5 (that’s us) will gain promotion to Level 4, and there will be no play off between the second placed teams.

There may be court cases afoot, I understand.

There will obviously be an unsightly scramble at the end of next season as it appears that as many as 14 teams from this level (Level 5) will be promoted into the level above to achieve the necessary 48 teams in Level 4.

The upshot of all this tomfoolery is that if we do survive this season, and remain at the higher table, we may only have to finish fourth to gain promotion back to the dizzier higher echelon of “National 2” or whatever it is called in 2015/16. Anyway, now you know the story. There will be a written exam at the end of the season…

We have a full programme on again this weekend and the games concerning our nearest foes are obviously in sharpest focus.

The Ingham family hosts Sale; Percy will be pulling on his moth eaten Parka to entertain Rossendale and Gerry and the Pacemakers at Waterloo pull on their Speedoes to climb into the Swamp at Lockwood Park.

Any rational view of proceedings would see Huddersfield beating Gerry and his boys and you would think Sale will have too much up their collective sleeve for the Inghams. So the focus of my one good eye falls on Rossendale at PP.

Afore Xmas I think we would have this nailed on as an East Lancs “w”; but since November 16th, The Dale have been pretty naff; In the first 11 games of the season they rattled in 52 points and in 11 since have only pulled in a further 15. Unfortunately this makes me think PP might just have a rabbit ready to be pulled from their sagging cloth cap.

My cup remains half full and I will see you next the bar, Saturday afternoon.