IT’S been a frustrating week for Canterbury Rugby Club head coach Danny Vaughan.

First, his side’s scheduled National League 3 South home game with Havant last Saturday fell victim to the weather and now the city club will be without another competitive fixture this weekend.

Canterbury were due to play Aylesford Bulls in the Kent Cup second round on Saturday but county officials have put the tie back to Sunday, February 8 after Aylesford were ordered to play a re-arranged London League 3 South East game this weekend with Old Dunstonians.

The problem for Vaughan with the new date is that it means his side will now face two tough matches over the weekend of February 7-8, as Canterbury are away to NL3S high-fliers London Scottish on Saturday, February 7.

Vaughan said: “The county RFU try to avoid making junior sides play two matches over a weekend in the belief that they haven’t got big enough squads to cope.

“Yet where senior teams like ourselves are concerned, they seem to think we can handle it. The fact is our squad isn’t big enough.”

At least Vaughan has been able to fix up a hastily-arranged friendly at Blackheath on Saturday to give his squad a run-out ahead of their important league game at Lydney on January 24.

The Gloucestershire club are just below Canterbury in the table and Vaughan added: “I reckon we need to win three or four more matches to be absolutely safe from relegation and the Lydney game is one of our remaining away games that we are capable of winning.

“The weather did us no favours at all last weekend because, although we lost at Ealing the week before, it was a good team performance and I was looking forward to building on that. But now are fixtures are beginning to pile up.”

For the Blackheath game (2pm), which will be played on the London club’s main ground at The Rectory Field, Vaughan will take a squad of 23 and intends to give every player a run-out, including Matt Lister, who has recovered from a cracked rib. But Lister’s fellow second row Steve Goode remains sidelined by a broken arm.

The game against Havant will now be played on Easter Saturday, April 11.