In the years since its founding, New Ross RugbyFootball Club has developed, within the urban community of New Ross Town and the surrounding rural area, to have over 500 playing members.

When the club started to play at Southknock there was just one men’s team playing rugby. In 1982, Southknock was further developed to include dressing rooms and showers, still mainly to cater for adult men’s rugby.

In the 2023/24 season, the demographics of the playing members in the club are substantially different with:

· Over 55 senior men players.
· Over 35 senior women players.
· Over 125 male youth rugby players(U13s to U18.5s).
· Over 75 female youth rugby players(U14s to U18.5s).
· Over 200 minis rugby players (U7sto U12s).
· Over 15 adult disability rugbyplayers (the Dunbrody Warriors).
· Over 40 rugby nursery players (age4 to 6).

During the playing season, on any given weekend, the club may field up to 13 different adult and youth teams plus up to 20 minis
rugby teams.
 

Additionally, there are 9 post-primary schools and upto 36 different primary schools that also use the pitches for matches.
 

Similarly, the demand for training pitches throughoutthe week is very high with all teams ranging from U10s through to adult looking
to run 2 training sessions per week.
 

The impact of climate change on the availability of traditional grass rugby pitches, has to be recognised and addressed. Especially following on from the wettest spring on record and its massive impact on training and playing throughout the 2023/24 season.
 

We are very fortunate to currently have large numbers of players and coaches; but we are rapidly reaching the point whereby our biggest obstacles are training and playing facilities.

This is continually becoming more evident as our playing base increases, the impact of climate change becomes more severe, and we start to see how other sports organisations offer better training and playing conditions to the players that we are trying to recruit and retain.

The need to develop other training and playingfacilities has been an ongoing issue for many years. Most recently, extensive investigation was carried out to find suitable land on which the club could develop new pitches. However, that option has not proved to be viable. There was very limited availability of land; and any land that was deemed as being suitable, required extensive infrastructure development including cycle ways,
footpaths, etc. to enable public access to the site. Therefore, such development is not financially feasible.

 
Considerable effort has also been spent to investigate options relating to long term usage of the Good Counsel College facilities. But this too, has proved to be unviable. It has been impossible to reach any agreement beyond a season-to-season commitment. With all other options exhausted, the preferred and viable option is to further develop the existing Southknock playing facilities.