Wheatley captain James Knoll-Pollard hopes they will be allowed to drop just one level after withdrawing from the BB&O Premier Division.

The Oxon club found it tough throughout their campaign, conceding eight walkovers in 18 matches, but Knoll-Pollard believes this could have been avoided.

He said: “We’ll try to start again next year.

“We shouldn’t have been in this league at the start of the season. We should have been relegated last year.

“The RFU decided to keep us in, which has been a bad decision.

“We struggled and lost a lot of players.

“Hopefully, next year we can we can take one step down, to BB&O Division 1.

“If we take two steps down, we run the risk of losing our better players.

“We have a good core of players, but they don’t want to be playing at such a low level.”

It is not yet clear how many teams will now be relegated from the BB&O Premier at the end of the season.

League secretary Doug Bosley said: “There has not been anything decided yet, it is all still work in progress until the season ends.”