LeytherRob

How can clubs get to that level of infrastructure when the only 2 options are full elite academy, or cat 3 college league academy? You say Development should be a prerequisite, not optional but it isn't even optional at the moment, it's ringfenced for only a max of 9 heartland clubs.

Disappointing second half, but then again we played at least 20 mins of it without a recognised prop forward on the pitch. Hopefully get some bodies back for next week and this weeks injuries aren't too bad.

Yep, if Beaumont is serious about building at Leigh then he should be getting Hood signed to a new contract regardless of the division we are in next year.

Happy enough with that to keep it to 10 points. Attitude night and day with the Salford game, key is backing it up next week now in another tough one against Wigan

Much improved from Leigh so far, need to back it up with an 80 minute performance though.

Good to know that because of your limited experience you've been able to comprehensively prove racism doesn't exist. Someone best call the RFL and tell them not to waste their time then.

Carvell is Director of Rugby which handles first team matters such as recruitment mainly, he was helping oversee the application for the academy but wasn't lined up to do any coaching.

John Davidson reporting Briers has applied for head of youth at Leigh, also that Duffy has 2/3 games to save his job.

Between tonight and game 1 against Wigan we've bottled 2 games massively, we could(and probably should) have been 4 points from 8 right now and the players and coaching staff have no one to blame but themselves.

Off the field would be a good place to start, Duffy looks out of his depth and his pre/post game interviews have so far given me no confidence in his ability to turn things down. We were well in the game today and (it feels particularly weird saying this after a 20+ point loss) could and should have won today. We were the better team in the first half and scored with our only 2 big chances to attack in the half. All we had to do was come out and do the basics right but we seemed to be chasing the game before we were even behind. The end of the first half was particularly stupid, we had a 2 point lead and a DG charged down but started throwing it around on the hooter with no need. Kicking game was actually much improved in the first half on recent weeks, as was defence but we couldn't even get to a kick more often than not in the second half and the shape was just none existent. We coughed up easy ball and just invited Salford into the game.

One of the worst 40 minutes I've seen from a Leigh team in a long while. Pretty bitter pill to swallow that one, much like the Wigan game.

Well either you do believe only a very select and specific group of scenarios are available, or you agree with my pretty uncontroversial opinion that there are more options available. You can't argue both and it isn't backtracking just because I didn't insult both of our intelligences answering what was a pretty stupid question. There's more than just those scenarios you've listed on this thread alone, let alone the countless other threads on here over the years.

So you're saying you now believe there are only 4 possible options? 'What have the romans ever done for us?..." springs to mind.

It wasn't, because no club was locked out from competing for any of the national competitions

Not really, it was a pretty stupid question. To recap, the 3 options you listed were: "promotion and relegation with two full time professional sides outside the top flight" Licensing "car crash Middle 8’s" You can have P&R without full time teams outside the top flight, and before anyone jumps in to complain about greedy championship clubs taking a slice of the hard earned SL pie - you don't need massive amounts of funding below SL either. You need 2 things to keep the game outside SL working, the first is a pathway and the second is time. The pathway is worth more financially to clubs in the championship than the funding because it keeps people interested, particularly investors. Plenty on this thread have heaped praise on York and Newcastle, but no one wants to acknowledge the P&R system is what has given them a pathway to aim at. There is no chance anyone would even be talking about them for SL if the lower tiers were still going through the motions under licensing. As for time, throughout all my years watching RL, the promoted team has always been starting on the back foot because they've been recruiting a team from the scraps of everyone else. We've seen plenty of attempts to fix this through 3 year licenses, middle 8's to build as close to a SL as you can get in the championship. Why not just stagger the seasons? Have the game below SL wrapping up early and give the promoted team a jumpstart on recruitment for once.

You really need me to prove there are more than 3 possible scenarios than the 3 extremely specific ones you've listed? Seriously?

I wasn't suggesting middle 8's, only that there are many more options available to the sport than just a very specific scenario in P&R with a couple of FT teams in the championship and a completely closed shop.

Might have been without P&R, but wasn't a closed shop.

Didn't realise there were only 2 options available...

I think the visceral reactions of the last 48 hours say everything about what appetite the UK has for an invite only, closed shop competition. Anyone claiming that licensing is a golden ticket idea that will fix the games issues is kidding themselves.

I don't want licensing full stop, doesn't matter whether Leigh were in the lucky 12 or not. Having watched events unfold over the couple of days, I can say I'm in the majority when it comes to the UK/European sporting public. Any solution to the structure of the game has to encompass all the divisions and provide clear pathways from bottom to top, we've no hope of attracting investment into the game(outside of 12 SL clubs) without it.

Absolutely, I want the whole game to grow. Not just 12 clubs.

Holding the game back from what exactly? The millions of sports fans clamouring for a licensed and closed shop Super League cut off from the rest of the game? Have you seen the news lately?

The same issue will crop up at Halifax and Toulouse too. You have a home team that play in blue and white, with the away team having kit options of dark blue and white, or light blue and white. They are both nice kits, so it's not a dig at Fev so much as questioning why the RFL haven't enforced their rules properly, but much like Wigans away/alternative shirts serving basically the same purpose, it just comes off like the design team couldn't decide between 2 options for the home(Fev) or away(Wigan) so just released them both anyway.

Have the rules been relaxed on kit clashes recently? Aside from the recently discussed Leeds/Wigan kit clash, I spotted the below picture from this weekends Swinton/Featherstone match.. I wasn't aware of their choice of away strip until seeing the pictures from weekend, but it seems really odd for a club to be able to go into a season with 2 blue and white kits, particularly when there are several other teams in the league with a blue/white home shirt. I know Leigh had their initial away shirt choice(White with light grey hoops) rejected because it was too close to their home shirt, rightfully so in my opinion, so it's a bit strange that we've ended up where we are.