Ross Sutherland offer use of Naval Grounds in Invergordon to Inverness Craig Dunain after rugby club struggled to find rugby pitches to play on in Highland capital
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
The Naval Grounds in Invergordon will again play host to matches for the 2022/23 rugby season – but it may not just be Ross Sutherland using the facility.
Inverness Craig Dunain have been left searching for a home after previously being based at Inverness High School, finding out shortly before their first competitive game of the 2022/23 season last weekend that the rugby pitches had been removed.
Left scrambling for a home at short notice, Highland stepped in to offer Canal Park for the National Bowl tie against Stornoway, but with three teams of their own it is not a viable solution for the league.
Instead, Craig Dunain have been forced to look further afield than their home city to ensure matches get played, with Ross Sutherland offering up the Naval Grounds and this Saturday's Caledonia North Three opener against Turriff taking place at Moray's ground in Elgin.
"We found out late on that Inverness High School's rugby pitches have been taken away," Craig Dunain men's team manager Graeme Hislop said.
"That wasn't ideal, so myself and (club president) Jess Butler were running about trying to get us a new home in Inverness. Highland kindly gave us Canal Park last Saturday, but our colleagues at Moray and Ross Sutherland have also offered us their pitches until we can get something resolved.
"We're a big part of the development at UHI, but we haven't been told what's going on there. As far as I'm led to believe, the money has all been granted and it's just a case of getting the planning permission through and appointing someone to carry out the work.
"We have no influence over that, which is very frustrating because we do think that once we're there it will get more ladies and gents playing rugby for our club.
"We can't do anything about that, so we just have to keep trying to find a pitch more locally. We are speaking to the army guys at Fort George, which is not ideal but it is a bit closer to home.
"Our players understand the situation we're in. They just want to play rugby, and they're quite keen, so it doesn't matter if we have to go to Elgin or Invergordon, they're more than happy to carry on – it's just not an ideal situation for us.
"We're in contact with the SRU who are helping us as well, and supporting us with any help they can give us."
