M j M

I suspect you overestimate the degree to which other clubs are constantly thinking about Leigh.

Unfortunately I have to share it with 60 million other people, including halfwits like Beaumont.

In what planet are Wigan doing financially "ok these days"? They're losing money just as much as the other big clubs but have minimal assets to fall back on. (Wealthy owners willing to plug gaps don't mean a club is in financial good health.)

Hull are a big and strategically important club for the sport, hopefully they can find a way to turn things round. As for Beaumont. He's classless egotist whose opinions on Rugby League are as worthless as they are witless.

I really wouldn't take Stevo's word for anything. He knows less than you do about the President of Leeds Rhinos and what he chooses to spend his money on.

Oledzki definitely isn't fully fit, he's playing because there's no one else really.

God, people fishing for something to be offended by are really tiresome. It's probably better explained in terms of crowd size. Pre stadium rebuild Leeds occasionally played cup ties at the same time as Yorkshire were playing a multi game day (even on a Saturday afternoon those don't have great crowds). They didn't schedule a conflict as such but a home draw in the cup and tv saying they wanted the Leeds game meant both needed to be played at the same time and with a few modifications to how the stadium worked the two clubs made it work. I don't think they've done it since the rebuild or ever for something with a decent attendance on the cricket side. They used to, and presumably still do, play RL games in the evening after cricket has been played during the day.

It's important to bear in mind. If Danson at Wigan, Coleman-McManus at Saints, Moran at Warrington and even Caddick at Leeds are content (not necessarily happy) to plug the financial holes then this doesn't really matter.

People say this a lot but I don't really agree. Not to say the current people are doing the best job possible but the reality is that there is no brilliant appointment or magic solution which will cure the game's problems - or even come close.

It's not clear who these clubs are but they probably include the ones with the smallest losses, yes.

I don't think so, the Leeds Foundation has been at a similar scale for quite a long time now, bringing in and spending around £1 to £1.4m each year.

Profitability only represents half a point in the spreadsheet. Bigger losses aren't particularly penalised. Profitability is rewarded.

Sadly I think he's being serious. He's mentioned this lunatic, badly conceived idea before.

Wakefield under Michael Carter were a model of financial prudency. They got a lot of stick but Wakey was the best example we had of a typical SL club living within its means. Unfortunately a lot of people didn't like the way that looked. I suspect that financial model has completely gone out of the window under the new owner.

A quick analysis of the Big Four from their 2023 financial statements. None of them look good. It's been six years since I last did this analysis. In that time Saints are the only club to record an increase in turnover - they've grown it by more than £2m which is pretty impressive whilst their rivals have fallen back. At EBITDA level though it's pretty cataclysmic: in 2017 these four clubs made a combined positive EBITDA of £886k (ranging from £1.2m at Leeds down to negative (£696k) at Saints). In 2023 the combined EBITDA for the four clubs is negative (£5.6m) with all of them having fallen back by hundreds of thousands of pounds and all of them much lower than the worst of the four in 2017. Warrington and Leeds are both making over £2m less EBITDA than they were six years ago. Below EBITDA things get murky with differing levels of depreciation and tax write backs. Leeds for some reason have included a detailed analysis of their turnover which is instructive (I would have resisted including this if these were my accounts, there's no need to go into this level of detail). It shows as mentioned above the YOY reductions in central funding.