phiggins

I think in isolation that this is a bad move. At very least it needs to be accompanied by increased salary cap dispensations for club trained players, and maybe even a reduced dispensation for players that play 3 years at a club before the age of 22 or 23, so clubs are still incentivised to give younger players a chance, even if not from their academy as a teenager. To play devil's advocate though. I see various people on social media suggesting that the standard of the league is down on what it should be. If that is the case, then we probably have a batch of players that are non-quota and late 20s / early 30s that are being paid over the odds as clubs are trying to complete a squad. If we're replacing those, rather than blocking places for the players now coming through, then this doesn't necessarily need to be a bad thing. As a Leigh fan, if we use the extra spots to replace players like Jack Hughes (33 years old), Gaz O'Brien (33), Brad Dwyer (32) or even Matty Davis (29), then I won't be too fussed. But I'll be very disappointed if we use the spots to push Hodgson, Towse etc down the pecking order.

Cas could also be in for him, given Chester signed him in the first place. Whether he signs for Leigh depends on whether they were on good terms when the contract was pulled.

So will next season be their third year of their first 3 year plan, or the first year of their third 3 year plan?

Seems a bit of an oversight to not introduce grading points deductions alongside competition points. If they’re being docked 8 comp points, then the equivalent percentage of points available should be docked from from the IMG score. Whether 8 is harsh or fair is another matter.

Yep, and completely unnecessary as well. Think most people watching on TV spotted the Wigan knock on and Leigh offside pretty quickly yet we had to endure countless replays.

To be fair, it only increased by around 70. No idea where those seats came from though. Will be nice if we can get to a point where the club have to consider having a stage for any prematch entertainment on the pitch to satisfy demand for tickets.

Just realised my typo. Was meaning to say that i never felt that you could get the extra 900 in. Instead I chose to say the exact opposite!

Not so sure about the fudge. I don't think the capacity has been at 12k for a number of years now, going back to before IMG criteria came in, possibly since the trouble in the cup semi final. I never stood in the North stand last year and never felt you could realistically get another 900 or whatever the number is in there.

I just sat down and waited. The commentators were sat behind us, and initially Barrie Mac was signalling Try to us, but then shaking his head. It was a disasterclass of officiating. Who picks what angles to check? Why does the ref need to recheck after saying he thinks it's a knock on? You can say the correct decision was made, but it took 5 minutes. And there are thousands of calls to be made during a game, if we spend 5 minutes on each one, a single game of rugby league will take longer than an entire series of test match cricket.

North Stand capacity reduced from when the 12k attendance was recorded, something to do with parts of the concourse being closed off cutting about 900 from the capacity. (I only know this because Matt posted it before) I don't know if the South stand was reserved seating or not? Looked pretty full to be unreserved.

Watching back, also shows how much of a mess we're making of the video ref process at the moment, with the Charnley no try. Shouldn't be spending 5 minutes trying to overturn a decision, nor should that have taken 5 minutes. It had it all, a ref making a call (saying it's a Wigan knock on) then watching it numerous more times to confirm what he's already said. Then sees Charnley might be offside, and instead of looking at the angle that highlighted that again, looked at angles that may as well been at a different game for what he was looking for. All while providing views nuggets such as "he's got green boots on" and "where did the ball go?" I wouldn't mind so much if this was a new thing bedding in, but we've been using the video ref to make these calls for 30 years now, and it's worse than ever.

I really hope Trout stays at prop now, I think he’s much better there than second row. Particularly with positional play in defence

Yep. But it was a very odd, albeit enjoyable game last week.

We should align with the international rules on ball steals, and allow a player to drop off the tackle for a team mate to make a one on one steal.

I think a lot of that has been down to the fact that we setup a reserves system for 2024. Obviously a consequence of previous decisions of the club, but inherited by Lam and Chester. While KR improved on their starting team with likes of May, Whitbread, Sue, Tanginoa, Burgess, Evalds / Morgue. That said, there have been some duds signed to play for the first team (Pene, Tuitivake, Martin) Hopefully we can have one close season where we see players leave on our terms, and build on what we have and bring in a few players to improve the team and subsequently the squad. I'll no doubt leave the ground annoyed tonight, but in the cold light of day, will remember that even after defeat tonight and next week (KR), we'd be 2/3 of the way through the season with 2/3 of the wins required to get top 6. A position that I'd have snatched your hand off if offered at the start of the season given the players we lost.

Yep, too many forwards that Lam doesn't really want to pick. Wilde, Rothwell, Brown, Martin. Brogan somewhere on the edge of that before his injury and Badrock still to find his best position. In this game, I fully expect 3 things: 1) One or two Wigan tries between 30-40 minutes 2) At least one Wigan try from a cross field kick to our left centre 3) At least one Wigan try from a kick that was allowed to bounce or not reached by our full back, whether that be GOB or Hodgson. Annoyingly the last point might have been less of an issue as the season went on, if it wasn't for the absolutely shocking management of our marquee signing at full back and his injuries.

Not something I've considered a problem. If it is, it would be very low down. I think the rolling mauls is a problem that I think needs to be addressed, go back to tackle being completed when a second attacker joins and if momentum takes the player over after that, just restart with the next tackle were held was called. What we're seeing now is players dropping in height quickly to find the ground, well inside the field of play and if we're wanting to reduce head contacts then we need to do something about that.

I thought it was a green card or interchange if play was stopped now? Might be that refs get instructed to stop play more quickly towards the end of the game to stop time wasting.

But then, just make it mandatory to have the boards, as it will be part of the advertising strategy.

There might have been an element of that, but our defence has been leaky from round 4 onwards. Conceded 8 tries last week, 7 at Wigan, 4 in one half in the last home game, we even conceded 4 to a Catalans side who went on to be nilled the next 3 league games, and Wakey put 40 on us at the LSV. And I think it's fair to say that we do not have enough forwards in the squad that Lam thinks are ready to play at this level, hence 4 or 5 being shipped out on loan so an injury to our best prop is going to hit us pretty hard. We might score a few tries, but think Wigan will keep us at least arm's length from them, regardless of French's absence.

Did Hudds ask for it to be moved early enough for it to be possible? The Leigh game was shifted quite a while ago.

Yep, still a way off playing by the sounds of it.

Really annoyed with how Lam kept Armstrong on for so long last week when he picked up that injury. Felt like a gamble to pick him every week as it was, and this seemed inevitable. Trout will move to prop, O'Neill off the bench to second row and Hodgson to full back is most likely, with a bench of McNamara, Davis, Tuitivake and Hughes. The main weaknesses we've had this year of struggling to defend kicks, weak bench and lack of composure/game manegement when behind will all show in this game, and Wigan will win fairly comfortably.

Contrast with the minutes from Rhys Martin https://www.rugby-league.com/governance/rules-and-regulations/disciplinary/disciplinary-case?case=19249 While I don't think the Martin incident was quite as severe, the biggest difference between the two cases was that Martin was represented by a solicitor and Horne was represented by two former players. Looks to me like Hudgell put the onus on evidence onto the panel, speaking their language, while McGuire and Chester were more like "games gone, use common sense" style of defence.

Won't there just be a vote to change that particular section of the operational rules? Of course, with the grading handbook being 'subject to amendment' there's some wiggle room there to push something through, no matter how demented.