Wigan Warriors owner Ian Lenagan has revealed that the reigning Super League champions do intend to play some reserve figures in 2019 – despite not formally entering the reserve competition itself.
Wakefield, Hull FC, Featherstone, Bradford and Keighley are all scheduled to be in the RFL’s reserve league, with the Warriors revealing late last year they had decided against taking part due to a lack of willingness from most Super League sides to compete.
However, Lenagan insists that will not stop Wigan pushing on and playing impromptu reserve games of their own throughout the 2019 season.
“We certainly will have to have casual games organised and we’re already involved in conversation with the other obvious clubs in that respect,” he said.
Lenagan also expressed his disappointment about a failure to properly press on with a full reserve competition in 2019 – leaving Wigan with only sporadic games, plus their dual-registration agreement with Swinton, for the development of their younger players who are not playing in the first-team.
Lenagan also called on the RFL to get a grip on reserves and make it compulsory. He added: “Unfortunately, Super League doesn’t control the reserves. That has got to be controlled at the RFL level and there’s a great requirement, a great belief that we need a reserves structure in order to develop properly as a club and as a league.”