DEVONPORT Services have no intention of turning their back on their amateur ethos, despite securing promotion to the National League.
Services will be mixing it with the likes of Taunton, Cinderford, Redruth, Camborne and Clifton next season in National Two West.
But as well as plenty of West Country trips, Services will also have long treks to the likes of Macclesfield and Loughborough Students, which will increase their travel costs significantly.
They will also be coming up against many teams who are semi-professional, but Services currently have no intention of joining them.
“Devonport Services is a very proud amateur club – and we will stay a very proud amateur club, although the coach and his assistant do receive remuneration for their efforts,” said secretary Fraser Pearson.
“But for the players there’s more to life than payment. They’ve all got jobs and you can pay them in other ways than giving them money.
“We are basically going from a regional league into a national league, although it is tagged ‘west’.
“It is unchartered territory after a very successful six or seven years where we have had three promotions. You can’t forget that we started at level seven before covid.
“Since covid, we’ve had two promotions under two different, but very good, coaches and we are basically feeling our way in the dark now really. We’ll just see how we get on.
“The aspiration is just to stay up and see where we are in 12 months’ time and then we’ll re-assess.
“It’s all about looking at season by season and seeing what happens.”
Pearson admits the way the club won the Regional One South West title ahead of the likes of Barnstaple, Chew Valley and Brixham probably did exceed expectations, but their goal had always been to be pushing for National League rugby.
“There were expectations at the start of the season that we might get promoted next season (2024-25), but obviously that’s happened early,” said Pearson.
“We wanted to finish better than we did last season – when we came fourth. We just wanted to do better than that, but it’s worked out that we came top.
“By the time we got to the end of January, we were all thinking that we were odds on favourites.”
Pearson admits the club just have to embrace life at level four.
“Yeah, definitely,” he said. “As a committee we have no control about what happens on the pitch, but we do employ a coach to sort that out for us. As a committee now we just have to follow what has happened on the pitch and back the players and the coach and support them all the way.”
He added: “We are in our 120th year and anyone associated with Devonport Services is very excited about next season.”
Services are hoping that their promotion might mean some more Royal Navy players will want to play for them.
“Obviously, we are affiliated to the Royal Navy Rugby Union and they like their players to play at the highest level they can, but they do need to be from this area to play for us,” said Pearson.
They will be just one division below city rivals Plymouth Albion when not so long ago the two historic clubs were separated by six divisions. It is likely that the two clubs will meet again in pre-season at the Rectory after playing at Brickfields last year.
The full list of teams in National Two West for 2024-25 is: Bournville, Camborne, Cinderford, Clifton, Devonport Services, Exeter University, Hinckley, Hornets, Loughborough Students, Luctonians, Macclesfield, Old Redcliffians, Redruth, Taunton Titans.
Meanwhile, 10 Services players have been named in Devon’s squad for their opening County Championships match against Dorset & Wiltshire at Ivybridge today.
Rikki Bentham, Aiden Taylor, Andy Pond, Mike Rickard, Liam Jarvis, James Hocking, Matt Gregory, Richard West and Shaun Crawford will all start, while Mark Friend is on the bench.
Also, in the Devon starting line-up is Plymstock Oaks’ winger Corey Jamieson, while team-mate Ollie White, Ivybridge’s Henry Trudgill and Tavistock George Hillson are named among the replacements.
Services’ George Pooley, Isaiah Akinrowo, Billy Sutton, Leighton Stark and Ethan Millard, Tavistock’s Jake Gaskin and Ivybridge’s Dan Gloyns are named in Devon’s under-20 squad to play also play Dorset & Wiltshire on Sunday at Crediton in the Under-20 quarter-finals.