LeytherRob

I certainly wouldn't bet against them keeping the LLS and GF trophies this year

Congrats to Wigan fans, thoroughly deserved the win. Gonna be a real challenge wrestling one of these trophies off them over the next 12 months.

Seems unlikely with Johnstone, Walmsley and Jowitt as Wakeys back 3.

To be fair I think that was more down to our lack of options at prop than Kai's ability. He was excellent as an ultra mobile prop in the championship and immediately one of our better performers. I think they planned to continue down that route at the start of last year but he was exposed with a lack of size to play down the middle in SL. As for Leutele, I'd have personally kept him on another year on a reduced deal but the fact we haven't even offered a deal suggests a replacement has already been line up. I'm excited to see what we bring in for next year considering the sheer amount of cap space we have to throw around.

I get the sentiment, but I'm not a fan of retiring shirt numbers at all, i think it honors players more when others can aspire to share those shirt numbers with legendary players.

Really? That's a mad rule

How was that not a rip then? Brown even praising KR for ripping the ball, no one mentioning it was 2 on 1...

Surprised Farrimond didn’t play in the halves with French at FB

Ryan Hampshire having a mare

Would be great to see NW back in the championship. Mid 2010’s it felt like they were building some momentum and were getting 4 figure crowds

No arguments here

And when you combine all those things to a single score, what does it matter where it is punished?

Catchment is 1 point out of 20. There are plenty other ways to score or lose points. London suffer because the crowds are tiny, finances are propped up by 1 guy with very little income elsewhere from gates/merchandising, their low social media engagement and so on, even if they corrected the catchment for London(which they should) they’d still be getting relegated because they’ve been a hollow entity for a decade now.

No different to the travel Cornwall have to do every other week now. As for finances, SL clubs need to make sure sufficient funding is trickling down if they want league 1 to continue.

You do get punished for not making inroads into a large catchment though, catchment is 5% of the grading. London are a prime example of being punished for not taking advantage of a large market to go at.

They could climb, but they'd never get close to what they could be in SL. Same goes for every club. Sure, some relegated clubs will come down with good attendances(Wakey, Bradford, Widnes, KR) but if they don't bounce back quickly they soon start leaving in droves. The novelty of playing new teams wears off quickly and the numbers don't lie.

Ultimately, what matters to the sport is numbers through the gates and watching on TV, the context behind them is irrelevant. The only thing unfair about measuring attendances in this way for IMG points in my opinion, is that it stacks against championship/league 1 clubs who are strangled by their exposure levels. It(along with several other factors) make the prospect of achieving grade A outside the top tier incredibly difficult which could soon become the only way to get promoted

Yeah I don’t get it either. I’m perfectly comfortable with the fact that Leigh aren’t, never have been and most likely never will be anything but a smaller club than Leeds and I don’t see a problem with that being reflected in the IMG points.

Been an enjoyable watch this, great scrambling defence from both sides

The amount of times the commentators this year have misidentified players or missed calls is embarrassing.

https://leighleopards.co.uk/contact-us-3/ You'll probably have more luck here than an Internet forum

@phiggins thought this might cheer you up

I know from discussions I've had with him, it's something DB has become obsessed with in recent years after initially going down the short term route in 2016/17. I think he realised after 2018s debacle that if he pulled out there would be nothing to show for all his money spent.

Looks like Salford have had theirs awarded also