Dunedin women’s premier grade will be missing a very familiar team when it gets under way next weekend — Pirates.
The defending champions have been unable to field a side this season and have pulled out of the competition.
A good portion of the players have popped up over at Dunedin who has entered the competition.
Club chairman Mark Howat was bitterly disappointed so many of the players had, well, jumped ship.
It leaves the 140-year-old club without a senior team.
Pirates dropped out of the premier men’s grade in 2017.
"It is a bitter pill to swallow," Howat said.
"Unfortunately, the grass always looks greener," and added the key players had been "enticed" to change camps.
Once the senior players decided to go, the younger players followed and that left Pirates unable to field a team, he said.
Pirates considered entering a team in the development competition, which will operate below the premier grade this season, but could not get a side together.
Howat said the club remains committed to rejoining the senior men’s and women’s ranks in the future, but for now would function as a junior club.
It is one of the bigger junior clubs in Dunedin with 13 teams this season.
"We would like to think, that if we can give those kids a really good experience, when they come out the other side of high school they will think of Pirates.
"Really, our entry back into the senior ranks now is through a Colts [or development] side."
The women’s senior rugby has expanded this season to include a four-team development competition.
However, the premier grade is down from six to five teams.
Dunedin has taken Pirates’ place, but Green Island has dropped down to the development competition after struggling to compete last season.
The opening round of games gets under way on May 7. The premier grade teams will play a single round-robin. The top four teams will progress to the semifinals with the final and third and fourth playoff scheduled for June 18.
The development grade, which features a Central Otago team, will play a double round robin followed by a finals day on June 18.
Otago Rugby Football Union community rugby manager Richard Perkins said the decision to get a development grade under way was a reflection of "playing numbers on the rise in secondary school".
"We needed to introduce a grade that would cater for female players that were still developing their rugby skill and knowledge and some clubs had an excess of players," Perkins said.
The grade will have the flexibility of using the "Game on" model, which means if teams do not have 15 players they can play with fewer players, or if teams do not have three front-row players, they can still play with non-contestable scrums.
