Whitehaven coach makes passionate plea to whole of Cumbria after worrying admission
Whitehaven head coach Kyle Amor
Whitehaven coach Kyle Amor has issued a rallying cry to all Cumbrian rugby league supporters, urging the county to help pack out the Ortus Rec for their final two home games of the season.
It has been a well-documented turbulent couple of months for Whitehaven, who have fallen on hard times financially whilst having to field just 16 and 14 players over the last fortnight in their wins over Doncaster and Dewsbury Rams respectively.
Amor answered an SOS call from the club earlier this month to become their new head coach and try to help his hometown club fight off relegation in the short-term as they look to resolve the financial hardship away from the field.
Whitehaven are currently 12th in the Championship table with five games of the regular campaign remaining, sitting above Dewsbury and Swinton Lions, being two points above the latter, with two teams to to go down from the Championship to League 1 in 2024.
And speaking exclusively to Love Rugby League, Amor delivered a passionate plea about his beloved Whitehaven, urging the local community to come out and support his side – and the town – in their final two home games of the season against York Knights and Halifax Panthers, starting this Sunday against Mark Applegarth’s high-flying York.
“We’ve got to look at one game at a time and there’s no bigger game than York at home,” Amor told Love Rugby League.
“There’s no guarantee with the numbers we have in our squad that we’ll even get to the end of the season so right now, so we have to deal with the immediate.
“We’ve got a group of players who are doing everything they can for the town. They are pulling on the shirt not fully 100 per cent with injuries and stuff like that, but they are taking to the field for the cause and for the town of Whitehaven.”
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Kyle Amor explains short-term and medium-term goals for Whitehaven as he issues passionate plea to Cumbrian community
Amor is one of a number of players from Whitehaven who have forged successful playing careers in Super League: and he is passionate about more players from the county following a similar path in the future, but has warned that can’t happen if there is no Haven club at the heart of the community.
“Right now, we are in danger of not having a license for professional rugby league in Whitehaven, so that’s the reality of the situation,” Amor added. “So in order for us to make sure that doesn’t happen, we need to fulfil the rest of these games and staying up is the short-term goal.
“The medium-term goal is then a big reset, so operationally and financially we are sound for 2025 and look to learn big lessons from this. I actually think that had this not happened now and it instead happened in the off-season, then there’d be no rugby league in Whitehaven next season.
“I’m not saying that everything is going to get solved right now, but these conversations needed to happen and so my message for Cumbrian rugby league fans is: no matter what your relationship with the club was in the past, we had 14 players out there last week who are playing busted with injuries and they are all giving their all to keep Whitehaven Rugby League in this town and finish off what they started which is keeping this side in the Championship.
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“My message is for those who like watching rugby league on a regular basis, but also for people to think about the next generation in the coming years. I don’t know what the landscape of rugby league in Whitehaven or West Cumbria is going to look like in years to come, but there’s an opportunity with the thousands of kids that are playing up there, it’s important that they have a natural progression to go into a professional environment like I did.
“I was very lucky that I got my chance at the top level through Whitehaven Rugby League. Not everybody is going to be able to do that, but if there is no rugby league team in the town, then there’s certainly no chance for people to do that.
“I’m talking about supporting the cause at the moment and the town, and what rugby league means to the people of Whitehaven and West Cumbria.
“We’ve already lost one industry in mining, which was built upon generations before us: and that was our tough, working identity. We’re very close to losing our secondary identity which is rugby league, so my message to people is to get down, support it, enjoy the day and hopefully we can show that grit and determination that we have been doing over the last couple of weeks.”
